Colette

Colette was a French novelist born in 1873 in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, a small village in Burgundy, and she died in Paris in 1954. Her childhood in the countryside, and her devotion to her mother, shaped much of her later writing. Her first books, the Claudine novels, appeared under the name of her first husband, but she went on to write under her own name and became one of the most admired French writers of her century. She also worked as a music-hall performer and a journalist. Her prose is known for its sensuous detail, its close attention to animals, gardens and food, and its frank, unsentimental view of love and desire. Among her best known works are Chéri and Gigi. She wrote about women's independence, ageing and the pleasures of the senses with wit and precision, and she received high honours in France at the end of her life.