Who dated Simone de Beauvoir?

Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (UK: , US: ; French: [simɔn də bovwaʁ] ; 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, nor was she considered one at the time of her death, she had a significant influence on both feminist existentialism and feminist theory.

Beauvoir wrote novels, essays, short stories, biographies, autobiographies, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and social issues. She was best known for her "trailblazing work in feminist philosophy", The Second Sex (1949), a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism. She was also known for her novels, the most famous of which were She Came to Stay (1943) and The Mandarins (1954).

Her most enduring contribution to literature are her memoirs, notably the first volume, Mémoires d'une jeune fille rangée (1958). She received the 1954 Prix Goncourt, the 1975 Jerusalem Prize, and the 1978 Austrian State Prize for European Literature. She was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1961, 1969 and 1973. However, Beauvoir generated controversy when she briefly lost her teaching job after being accused of sexually abusing some of her students.

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Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, US also ; French: [saʁtʁ]; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. Sartre was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology). His work has influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature despite attempting to refuse it, saying that he always declined official honors and that "a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution."

Sartre had an open relationship with prominent feminist and fellow existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. Together, Sartre and de Beauvoir challenged the cultural and social assumptions and expectations of their upbringings, which they considered bourgeois, in both lifestyles and thought. The conflict between oppressive, spiritually destructive conformity (mauvaise foi, literally, 'bad faith') and an "authentic" way of "being" became the dominant theme of Sartre's early work, a theme embodied in his principal philosophical work Being and Nothingness (L'Être et le Néant, 1943). Sartre provided an introduction to his philosophy in his work Existentialism Is a Humanism (L'existentialisme est un humanisme, 1946), originally presented as a lecture.

Born in Paris, Sartre lost his father at age two and was raised primarily by his mother and grandfather, who introduced him to literature. He studied at the prestigious École Normale Supérieure, where he developed a deep interest in philosophy, influenced by thinkers like Henri Bergson, Edmund Husserl, and Martin Heidegger. Sartre's early academic career included teaching in several French lycées and engaging in provocative pranks and debates.

Sartre's life was marked by strong political engagement. During World War II, he was drafted, captured, and later released, after which he co-founded the resistance group Socialisme et Liberté. Though the group dissolved, Sartre became an influential voice in occupied France, contributing to underground literature and writing plays like No Exit. After the war, he co-founded the journal Les Temps modernes and increasingly used his platform to advocate for political and social causes. He supported anti-colonial movements, condemned French policies in Algeria, opposed U.S. intervention in Vietnam, and aligned himself at various times with Marxism and Maoism. Despite declining health in his later years, Sartre remained committed to activism and intellectual debate until his death in 1980. His funeral drew 50,000 mourners.

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Nelson Algren (born Nelson Ahlgren Abraham; March 28, 1909 – May 9, 1981) was an American writer. His 1949 novel The Man with the Golden Arm won the National Book Award and was adapted as the 1955 film of the same name.

Algren articulated the world of "drunks, pimps, prostitutes, freaks, drug addicts, prize fighters, corrupt politicians, and hoodlums". Art Shay singled out a poem Algren wrote from the perspective of a "halfy," street slang for a legless man on wheels. Shay said that Algren considered this poem to be a key to everything he had ever written. The protagonist talks about "how forty wheels rolled over his legs and how he was ready to strap up and give death a wrestle."

According to Harold Augenbraum, "in the late 1940s and early 1950s he was one of the best known literary writers in America." A lover of French writer Simone de Beauvoir, he is featured in her novel The Mandarins, set in Paris and Chicago. He was called "a sort of bard of the down-and-outer" based on this book, but also on his short stories in The Neon Wilderness (1947) and his novel A Walk on the Wild Side (1956). The latter was adapted as the 1962 film of the same name (directed by Edward Dmytryk, screenplay by John Fante).

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Claude Lanzmann (French: [lanzman]; 27 November 1925 – 5 July 2018) was a French filmmaker, best known for the Holocaust documentary film Shoah (1985), which consists of nine and a half hours of oral testimony from Holocaust survivors, without historical footage. He is also known for his 2017 documentary film Napalm, about a love affair he had with a North Korean nurse whilst visiting North Korea in 1958, several years after the Korean War.

In addition to filmmaking, Lanzmann had also been the chief editor of Les Temps Modernes, a French literary magazine.

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