From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
In
1943,
Simone de Beauvoir published
She Came to Stay, a fictionalized chronicle of her and Sartre's relationship with
Olga Kosakiewicz and
Wanda Kosakiewicz. Olga was one of her students in the Rouen secondary school where she taught during the early 30s. She grew fond of Olga. Sartre tried to pursue Olga but she denied him; he began a relationship with her sister Wanda instead. Sartre supported Olga for years until she met and married her husband, Beauvoir's lover
Jacques-Laurent Bost. At Sartre's death, he still supported Wanda. In the novel, Olga and Wanda are made into one character with whom fictionalized versions of Beauvoir and Sartre have a
ménage à trois. The novel also delves into Beauvoir and Sartre's complex relationship and how it was affected by the
ménage à trois.
