She was a declared atheist from this time, resolved to live the life of the intellect, rather than the spirit.
In 1955 The Mandarins, considered by some to be her best book, was published. It was based loosely on her relatioships with Algen and Sartre and won the Prix Goncourt - the highest literary honour in France. Again banned by the Catholic church, it was dedicated to Algren, despite his unhappiness with the contents. Between 1958 and 1972, simone published four autobiographical works - Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, The Prime of Life, Force of Circumstance and All Said and Done. These all demonstrated that, as far as possible, she lived like her heroines: and independent woman shaping her life with decisions she made for herself.
In her later books, Simone turned her focus to the subject of decline and death, depicting the problems of ageing and society's indifference to older people in A Very Easy Death and Old age. In 1981 she published A Farewell to Sartre - an account of the last years of Satre's life.
She died of pneumonia in Paris on 14 April 1986 and was buried beside Satre in the Cimetiere de Montparnasse. ' Our relationship', she said, 'was the greatest achievement of my life.'
