The Mandarins

The Mandarins is a novel by Simone de Beauvoir, published in 1954, the year it won the Prix Goncourt. It is set in Paris after the liberation of the city in August 1944 and follows a close-knit group of French intellectuals up to the mid-1950s. The title refers to the intellectual elite of the period, whom the characters themselves sometimes call mandarins, a reference to the lettered officials of imperial China.

The book portrays a turning point in French history: the settling of accounts with collaborators, the search for a just path between the interests of the Soviet Union and the United States, and the pragmatic acceptance of a future full of uncertainty and disillusion. Although it is structured as a novel, the work is steeped in existentialist, feminist and political reflection, and the characters' personal and intimate relationships constantly intertwine with their public positions.

It is a long book and demanding to read. Many critics regard it as the finest of Beauvoir's novels. Some of its characters have been linked to real figures in her circle, although the author herself denied that the book was a roman à clef and insisted that her characters were literary creations.