Simone de Beauvoir, novelist, dramatist, and philosopher, was the most distinguished woman writer in modern France. A leading exponent of French existentialism, her work complements, though it is independent of, that of ...Simone de Beauvoir, novelist, dramatist, and philosopher, was the most distinguished woman writer in modern France. A leading exponent of French existentialism, her work complements, though it is independent of, that of her great friend jean-paul sartre.