The new English translation of Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex” has just been released in the U.K. on the heels of its 60th anniversary. Though long considered a founding feminist text, “The Second Sex” has never been adequately translated into English. The version most English speakers have seen was written by a male zoologist who taught at Smith College but was familiar with neither feminism nor existentialism. In addition to the poor translation of ideas, the English edition cut 145 pages from the original text.

Beauvoir wrote four years before her death that she felt “misrepresented” by the English rendering of her work. Scholars have pointed out for years the inconsistent and incomplete aspects of the book, but the publisher, Knopf, deemed the text not sufficiently mainstream to merit a new edition. It wasn’t until Sarah Glazer’s 2004 article in The New York Times that interest in a new translation was renewed. Glazer met with the new translators, Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, in 2007 who explained the process behind their work, which — because of the breadth of Beauvoir’s knowledge — required consultation with philosophers, biologists, medievalists, and other specialists.

An American edition won’t be available until April 2010, but I’m hoping to find a copy when I go to Europe in a couple weeks. If you can read French, full details about the new release can be found in Le Monde.