America Day by Day

In 1947, Simone de Beauvoir took a road trip across America.

She travelled from coast to coast, from New York to Hollywood, taking in New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana and Washington DC. She rode a pony through the Grand Canyon, listened to jazz in New Orleans and visited the nightclubs of Chicago. And she captured the entire experience in her journal.

This captivating book is that journal and an immersive portrait of postwar America. Beauvoir was disturbed by the poverty and segregation she encountered and at the same time delighted by American energy and friendliness.

Intimate, warm, and compulsively readable, this is travel writing from the iconic feminist and thinker, Simone de Beauvoir.

On New York: ‘I walk between the steep cliffs at the bottom of a canyon where no sun penetrates: it’s permeated by a salt smell. Human history is not inscribed on these carefully calibrated buildings: They are closer to prehistoric caves than to the houses of Paris or Rome.’

On Los Angeles: ‘I watch the Mexican dances and eat chilli con carne, which takes the roof off my mouth, I drink the tequila and I’m utterly dazed with pleasure.’