By Nava Atlas | On March 29, 2019 | Updated September 8, 2022 | Comments (0)
The Woman Destroyed by Simone de Beauvoir (1908 – 1986) published first in French in 1967 as La Femme Rompue, presents a trio of novellas (or, one could argue, long short stories).
The French author, existential philosopher, political activist, and feminist has remained best known for The Second Sex (1949). But de Beauvoir also put her social theories, especially those pertaining to affairs of the heart, into several works of fiction.
Upon the book’s 1969 publication in English, The Sunday Herald Times (London) wrote: “In three immensely intelligent stories about the decay of passion, Simone de Beauvoir draws us into the lives of three women, all past their first youth, all facing unexpected crises … suffused with de Beauvoir’s remarkable insights into women, The Woman Destroyed gives us a legendary writer at her best.” Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On March 16, 2019 | Updated September 6, 2026 | Comments (0)
Simone de Beauvoir (1908 –1986) was a French author, existential philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist whose most popular and enduring work is The Second Sex.
Published in 1949, it was considered quite radical for its time and made de Beauvoir an intellectual force to be reckoned with. The book has inspired generations of women to question the status quo and strive to change it.
De Beauvoir, who wasn’t yet forty when her magnum opus was published, explored the history and mythology of the female gender. It was first published it in two volumes, Facts and Myths and Lived Experience (Les faits et les mythes & L’expérience vécue). Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On March 7, 2019 | Updated October 4, 2026 | Comments (0)
My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather is a 1926 novella by the eminent American author. Cather sketches a character study of a woman and a life not particularly well-lived. In this slim work, the story of an ill-considered marriage unfolds. My Mortal Enemy is considered a minor work by Cather, and critics have debated whether it has stood the test of time.
Unlike the nearly universal praise for her major works —My Ántonia, Death Comes for the Archbishop , and O Pioneers! among others, My Mortal Enemy has been received with praise as well as met with disappointment.
In a later edition, this question was posed: “Has the author tried to undo A Lost Lady? There is a definite mark of similarity between the two books, but one feels that she has not come up to her earlier mark, though she has done so admirably.” Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On February 27, 2019 | Updated January 22, 2023 | Comments (0)
A Lost Lady (1923) is a shining example of Willa Cather’s gift for concise expression and talent for vivid character studies. Marian Forrester, a young woman of beauty and grace, brings an uncommon air of sophistication to the frontier town of Sweet Water.
Marian wound up in Sweet Water, which lay along the Transcontinental Railroad, through her marriage to the much older Captain Daniel Forrester.
The novel is written from the viewpoint of Niel Herbert, a young man who has grown up in Sweet Water. He idealizes Mrs. Forrester, even as he witnesses her decline. As a contemporary edition of A Lost Lady concludes, “The recurrent conflict in Cather’s work, between frontier culture and an encroaching commercialism, is nowhere more powerfully articulated.” Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On November 25, 2018 | Updated August 1, 2026 | Comments (0)
Martha Gellhorn was married to Ernest Hemingway when Liana, her fifth novel, was published in 1944. She had already made quite a name for herself as a war correspondent by that point and it rankled her to be described as “Mrs. Ernest Hemingway” in reviews of her books.
Though her fiction varied in its quality and critical acclaim, her book of linked stories titled The Trouble I’ve Seen (1936), based on her actual observations as a journalist during the Depression, earned her a great deal of respect.
Her brief marriage to Hemingway was already in jeopardy the year that Liana appeared. In her capacity as a war correspondent, Gellhorn wanted to cover the action, wherever it happened to be. Read More→
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