"A Very Easy Death" is arguably the first materialist text about death. Gone are the spiritual, mysterious, and meditative overtones. What remains is death as a process—structured by social totality and saturated with technology. — Alain Badiou, French philosopher, 1965

When Françoise, Simone de Beauvoir’s mother, is diagnosed with late-stage cancer, de Beauvoir stays by her mother’s bedside for the first time in decades, watching as the woman she thought she knew well reveals a previously unknown will to live. Written in the uncompromising, analytical style that made de Beauvoir one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century, *A Very Easy Death* chronicles the final weeks of Françoise’s life without sparing either the reader or the author herself. De Beauvoir examines the petty cruelties of hospitals, the well-intentioned lies told by doctors, and her own complicated feelings toward a mother she had kept at arm’s length for most of her adult life. The result is not a banal memoir of suffering, but a philosophical meditation on mortality—on how we die, how we perceive death, and how a terminal illness can strip away layers of unresolved conflict to reveal a genuine tenderness beneath. First published in 1964, this slim, stunning book remains one of the most honest accounts of losing a mother and a key work in de Beauvoir’s oeuvre. ...studies on embodiment, aging, and human dignity.

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) was a French philosopher, writer, and a leading figure of the feminist movement. She graduated from the Sorbonne, where she studied philosophy. She was the partner and kindred spirit of Jean-Paul Sartre. A central figure in atheistic existentialism, de Beauvoir developed her own philosophy of freedom, responsibility, and "otherness." She authored numerous novels, short stories, essays, memoirs, and a play. She is best known for her two-volume philosophical essay *The Second Sex* (1949), which revolutionized the understanding of female identity by formulating the famous thesis: "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." A complete translation of the renowned writer's novella *A Very Easy Death* is now offered to Belarusian readers for the first time.
Cover artist: Siarhei Shabokhin.