Genevieve Davies

Writing as Genevieve Shepherd

Simone de Beauvoir's Fiction

A Psychoanalytic Reading

Simone de Beauvoir's fiction is a largely unexplored field. This book offers new readings of her whole fictional corpus, using psychoanalysis as a critical lens. Vehemently anti-Freudian at the beginning of her career, Beauvoir denied the validity of his theories; however, her fiction hints at a different tale. It is the untold Beauvoirean story this book sets out to tell.

Firstly, using her own autobiographical admissions it examines her resolute resistance to psychoanalysis and offers possible reasons for her initial violent disavowal of its concepts. Secondly, it traces her explicit engagement with psychoanalysis as a clinical discipline through a chronological examination of her fiction. Finally, it employs psychoanalytic literary theory as a magnifying lens through which to view her entire fictional output, while also offering new interpretations of her most underread texts.

Genevieve Shepherd gained a first class degree in French and Spanish from Bristol University in 1994. She was awarded the MPhil and DPhil from Oxford University in 1996 and 1998. She also holds the CPE Diploma in Law from City University, and was called to the Bar in November 2000.