Simone De Beauvoir Google Logo Has Come To Stay In A Number Of Countries, Just Not The US

A number of Google international homepages are celebrating feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir’s 106th birthday with a Beauvoir-inspired Google logo, but there’s no sign of The Second Sex author on Google’s US homepage.

The Simone de Beauvoir Google logo includes a head shot of the author against a Parisian backdrop, and is featured on several international Google sites, including Google France, Google UK, Google Germany, Google Spain, Google Brazil and Google Africa.

Born Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir in Paris on January 9, 1908, Beauvoir studied philosophy at the Sorbonne. At the age of 21, she and Jean Paul Sartre would begin a relationship that lasted until Sartre’s death in 1980. In 1985, Beauvoir penned an account of the couple’s last years together in Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre.

Her first novel She Came to Stay was published in 1943. She would go on to publish several essays and books, and became known as one of the leading feminist and existential theorists of the 20th century.

Beauvoir’s most famous novel The Second Sex puts a spotlight on the treatment of women throughout history. The book is credited with launching a “second wave” of feminism and remains a classic. Other well known Beauvoir novels include The Mandarins, Memoir of a Dutiful Daughter and The Woman Destroyed.

Beauvoir died at the age of 78 in 1986 and is buried next to Sartre in the well known Parisian cemetery Cimetière du Montparnasse.