Book description
Edited and with an introduction by Robert PhelpsThe hundred short
stories collected here include such masterpieces as 'Bella-Vista', 'The
Tender Shoot' and 'Le K-pi', Colette's subtle and ruthless rendering of
a woman's belated sexual awakening. Shot through with the colours and
flavours of the Parisian world and fertile French countryside, these
short stories reverberate with the fine-spun desire, wit and
psychological acuity that made Colette unique. Colette, the creator of
Claudine, Cheri and Gigi, and one of France's outstanding writers, had a
long, varied and active life. Born in Burgundy on 1873 she moved to
Paris at the age of twenty with her husband the writer and critic Henry
Gauthiers-Viller (Willy). Forcing Colette to write Willy published her
novels in his name and the Claudine series became an instant success. In
1935 she married for the third time and lived with husband Maurice
Goudeket until her death in 1954. Her writing runs to fifteen volumes,
novels, portraits, essays, chroniques and a large body of
autobiographical prose. She was the first woman President of the
Academie Goncourt, and when she died she was given a state funeral and
buried in Pere-Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
