How to Be Authentic by Skye C. Cleary

Peter Tallack

St Martin’s Press (US)/Ebury (UK)*

PUBLICATION 16 August 2022

LENGTH 322 pages

*Published in the UK as HOW TO BE YOU: Simone de Beauvoir and the Art of Authentic Living

• UK & Commonwealth (Ebury) • US & Canada (St Martin’s) • China (United Sky (Beijing) New

Media) • Netherlands (Ten Have) • Russia (Alpina)

‘Cleary allows Beauvoir to speak to our age and dares us, repeatedly, to become who we are’ – John Kaag, author of Hiking With Nietzsche

In our age of self-exposure, ‘authenticity’ has become attenuated to the point of meaninglessness; everyone says to be yourself, but what that means is anyone’ s guess. For the existential philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, however, authenticity is not the revelation of a true self, but an exhilarating quest towards fulfilment – we exist first and then spend the rest of our lives creating who we are.

HOW TO BE AUTHENTIC is a lively introduction to Simone de Beauvoir’ s philosophy of existentialism, as well as an exploration of the successes and failures that Beauvoir and other women have experienced in striving for authenticity. Through friendship, romantic love, marriage, parenthood and death, Skye C. Cleary shows how life’s major relationships and milestones offer an opportunity for us to stretch towards authenticity. While many people don’t get to choose their path in life – whether because of systemic oppression or the actions of other individuals – Cleary makes a compelling case that Beauvoir’s ideas can help us become more conscious of living purposefully, thoughtfully and with vitality, and she shows us how to do so in responsible ways that invigorate every person’s right to become poets of their own lives.

Skye C. Cleary teaches philosophy at Barnard College, City College of New York, and Columbia University, and has lectured on love and philosophy at institutions and venues all over the world. She is the author of EXISTENTIALISM AND ROMANTIC LOVE (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) and is co-editor, with Massimo Pigliucci and Daniel Kaufman, of the anthology HOW TO LIVE A GOOD LIFE (Vintage, 2020). Her writing has appeared in Aeon, the Paris Review, the Independent, the HuffPost, Business Insider, the New Republic and Quartz, among other outlets. She lives with her husband and son in New York City.