Seeking Simone

It’s 1989. A Melbourne student hears about the book The Second Sex for the first time when she begins university. She learns that it caused a scandal in Paris when it was published in 1949. And also that the ideas were radical and revolutionary.

What was this book about? Who wrote it? She finds a second hand copy of The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir and starts to read it. She only reads the introduction and puts it aside.

Many years later she pulls the book out of a box in the roof. She goes to Paris on a quest to find out more about the book and Simone de Beauvoir.

 

She goes to the cafes where Simone wrote, and the national library where Simone did her research. She finds out that the first translation edited out 15 percent of Simone’s book. She meets the recent translators of The Second Sex. Her quest to find out about its impact and relevance has just begun.