The other Simone

Simone Jollivet, the passion of Sartre’s youth, then Charles Dullin’s companion, is largely unknown to us now, except through a few of Sartre’s letters and the novel drafted under the title Une défaite. Yet she lives on in the texts of her rival, Simone de Beauvoir, whose Mémoires, L'Invitée turns Jollivet into the character Élizabeth, and whose work Tout compte fait relates her downfall under the name of Camille. This called for an attempt to advocate on her behalf.