Force of Circumstance

Force of Circumstance (in French, La Force des choses) is the third volume of Simone de Beauvoir's four-part memoir sequence, published in 1963. It follows Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (1958) and The Prime of Life (1960), and is followed by All Said and Done (1972), the final volume. In this installment the author questions her own life, taking stock of the path she has traveled and reflecting on her choices.

The book belongs to a wider body of autobiographical writing that Beauvoir produced over her career. She later published A Farewell to Sartre (1981), which recounts the last years of her companion, Jean-Paul Sartre. A war diary covering September 1939 to January 1941 appeared posthumously in 1990.