Mandarins, Les. Novel by Simone de Beauvoir which won the Prix Goncourt in 1954. It is a long, rich, and complex text intertwining two narratives, the first presented in the third person and focused through Henri, a writer and journalist, and the second a first-person narrative voiced by Anne, a psychotherapist. Both present the political and moral dilemmas of the French left-wing intelligentsia in the immediate post-war period in France (1944-8), struggling with their own attitudes to the Communist Party, with the shock of the news of Hiroshima and of the existence of the Soviet labour camps, with the problem of meting out justice to ex-collaborators, and with the issue of the relative priorities to be accorded to literature and politics. The central question of the nature of the relationship between political efficacy on the one hand and morality on the other is constantly returned to. Paralleling these dilemmas is the problem of choice within the heterosexual couple. Both Anne and Henri make difficult personal choices, but whereas Henri emerges with renewed strength, Anne is left contemplating suicide. Beauvoir's first novel after Le Deuxième Sexe, it exhibits an acute awareness of Anne's problems as wife and mother.
— Elizabeth Fallaize
