Careau’s lean, attentive translation restores to these classic novels their taut, remarkably modern style-the essence of Colette’s genius. Emotionally estranged from his independent and unfaithful wife, a psychically wounded Chéri begins an inexorable descent-one that leads him back to a stunning encounter with Léa.Īs the acclaimed writer and translator Lydia Davis puts it in an illuminating foreword, Rachel Careau’s “brilliantly ingenious, close new translation” reveals Chéri and The End of Chéri as “the strangest of love stories.” Colette skillfully portrays her characters’ shifting inner lives and desires amid a clear-eyed depiction of interpersonal power dynamics. Chéri, now a decorated soldier, has returned from the trenches to a changed world. The End of Chéri picks up their story in the aftermath of the First World War. In 1906 she left her husband and lived for a time with the American writer and salonist Natalie Barney. Her first books, the Claudine series, were published under the pen name of her husband, 'Willy'. First published in 1920, it was instantly greeted by Marcel Proust. Set in the Parisian demimonde in the last days of the Belle poque, Chri tells the story of La, a courtesan at the end of a successful career, and her lover. In 1893 she married Henri Gauthier-Villars, a famous wit known as 'Willy', who was 15 years her senior. Chéri will soon enter into an arranged marriage, ending their six-year affair, which-they will each realize too late-has been the one real love of their lives. Cheri is one of the most honest, sensual, and poignant breakup stories ever written. Addeddate 02:55:40 Identifier in.ernet.dli.2015.202000 Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t0jt4wq73 Ocr ABBYY FineReader 11. Set in the Parisian demimonde in the last days of the Belle Époque, Chéri tells the story of Léa, a courtesan at the end of a successful career, and her lover, the beautiful but emotionally opaque Chéri.

An exquisite new translation of Colette’s tragicomic masterpiece, a pair of novels exploring the relationship between an aging courtesan and a much younger man.Ĭhéri and its sequel, The End of Chéri, mark Colette’s finest achievements in their brilliant, subtle, and frank investigations of love and power.

The last of chéri