Between 1947 and 1948, Jean-Paul Sartre published the autobiographical account of a Parisian prostitute in the magazine Les Temps modernes published by Gallimard. If the figure of the prostitute, demonized or sublimated, had been present in literature for a long time, from L’Abbé Prévost to Baudelaire through Sade or Maupassant, for the first time with this text, a woman testifies. After its publication as a serial, this document, written in a direct and raw language, was published in an integral and anonymous edition, then republished several times throughout the century. Simone de Beauvoir is credited with the formatting of this text and described it as an “astonishing piece of raw literature”. Vie d’une prostituée is an unusual and poignant work. The author, a certain Marie-Thérèse, describes without detour her condition as a woman who earned her living by offering her body. From the elegant brothels to the sidewalks of Paris, from the brothels of soldiers to the dark cellars, she tells us the reality of the oldest profession in the world without glamour or glitter. This new edition of the legendary text is illustrated with period photographs, bearing witness to these women’s lives.
