Violette LEDUC / Signed Autograph Letter / Her Friendship with Simone de Beauvoir

  

Autographed letter signed "Violette Leduc" to Yvon [Belaval] S. November 6, [19]57, 1 p. Violette Leduc shares news following her stay at La Vallée-aux-Loups for paranoid disturbances.

Thank you for your affectionate letter. Yes, come when you can. I hope you have less fatigue, both physically and mentally.

I have not been at La Vallée-aux-Loups since June 57. Simone de Beauvoir is an extraordinary friend.] I embrace you fraternal, Yvon. Struggling with manic-depressive tendencies after achieving literary success with her first novel Ravages, published in 1955, Violette Leduc spent the end of 1954 in a clinic in Versailles before spending six months at the rest home of Dr. Henri Le Savoureux at La Vallée-aux-Loups (Chateaubriand's residence from 1807 to 1818).

In love with Simone de Beauvoir, who inspired her prose poem L'Affamée in 1948, their relationship gradually transformed into a tender and affectionate bond that lasted until Violette Leduc's death in 1972. Since 1949, Sartre and Beauvoir provided her with a small pension through Éditions Gallimard to accommodate Violette's sensitivity. Then, starting in 1954, Beauvoir would take on this responsibility alone for her protégé, thanks to the Goncourt prize won for Les Mandarins.

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