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Review Essay / Recension comparée
This Time We Didn’t Wait
The Simultaneous English Translations of Simone de Beauvoir’s
Les Inséparables
Carolyn Shread
Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA, USA
cshread@mtholyoke.edu
Simone de Beauvoir, Les Inséparables, Paris, Éditions de L’Herne, 2020, 174
pages, i sbn 9791031902746.
Simone de Beauvoir, The Inseparables, trans. Lauren Elkin, London, Vintage
Classics, 2021, 164 pages, isbn 9781784877002.
Simone de Beauvoir, Inseparable, trans. Sandra Smith, New York, Ecco, 2021, 176
pages, i sbn 9780063075047.
Although Les Inséparables had “A Release Date 66 Years in the Making,” within
a year this posthumous publication by Simone de Beauvoir received not just
one but two English translations. Unlike the protracted translation sagas of The
Second Sex, the publication of this autobiographical novella starring Beauvoir’s
childhood friend “Zaza” (Élisabeth Lacoin) is a happy event to be celebrated in
1 Alexandra Alter and Laura Cappelle, “A Release Date 66 Years in the Making,” The New York
Times, June 8, 2020. The title of this review references Toril Moi’s influential article calling
for a retranslation of The Second Sex that would offer due justice to Beauvoir’s contribution
to philosophy. Toril Moi, “While We Wait: The English Translation of The Second Sex,” Signs,
vol. 27, no. 4, Summer 2002, pp. 1005–1035.