In my thesis I will deal with two literary highlights of modern prose after the Second World War. The first novel, published in 1958, Črni dnevi in beli dan (Black days and a White Day), written by Dominik Smole, is considered the first Slovenian post-war modern novel and one of the literary peaks of Slovenian existential fiction. The second novel,Mandarins, published in 1954, by a French existentialist writer Simone de Beauvoir, received the highest literary prize of France, Prix Goncourt, shortly after its release. Both authors play a key role in the development of post-war literature, Dominik Smole in Slovenian literature, and Simone de Beauvoir in the trans-national post-war feminist literature. They participated in important literary magazines and newspapers, and with that they extended the space of literary freedom. In my thesis I address the question of modernism and existentialism in Smole's and Beauvoir's novels. Comparison of both novels points out representation of woman in the aspect of existential thought.
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