Gigi
Will be published approx. on 4. June 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
336 pages
978-0-241-57471-3 (ISBN)
Description
'Fine teeth, my girl. With teeth like that I'd have gobbled up Paris and the rest of the world.'
Gigi, a teenage girl in fin-de-siecle Paris, is being groomed by her family to become a high-class courtesan, just like her aunt and grandmother before her. But despite their best efforts, their timid protegee may have other ideas for her future...
Colette's famous novella is a sly and delicate depiction of exploitation and resistance, and is paired here with the wonderful short story 'The Cat'.
Gigi, a teenage girl in fin-de-siecle Paris, is being groomed by her family to become a high-class courtesan, just like her aunt and grandmother before her. But despite their best efforts, their timid protegee may have other ideas for her future...
Colette's famous novella is a sly and delicate depiction of exploitation and resistance, and is paired here with the wonderful short story 'The Cat'.
Reviews / Votes
Everything that Colette touched became human * The Times * This most French of all French writers tells us how love sometimes binds and keeps a woman from breathing freely or how it may shape and support her . . . One thinks of her as the female voice of Paris * New York Times * By turns revolutionary and retrograde, liberated and conservative, a traditionalist who defied labels and loved a title, Colette was nothing if not contradictory. Both her life and her body of work were epic -- Sadie Stein * New York Times * Colette was in herself a French experiment in life. Her writing was born of her insatiable curiosity for life and love -- Agnes Poirier * The Times * The most beloved French writer of all time * BBC Culture *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 35 mm
Weight
500 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-57471-3 (9780241574713)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Persons
Colette (Author)
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette was born in 1873 in a village in Burgundy, France, and would later recall her bucolic home and eccentric family in the semi-fictionalized Claudine's House. At the age of twenty, she married the publisher and author 'Willy', who encouraged her to write her first four novels. The novels made her famous, but her husband, under whose name they had been published, retained her earnings. Escaping her marriage, Colette became a performer in France's music halls, an era of her life she would later describe in The Vagabond. She wrote her most famous works during the 1920s and 30s; these included Cheri, depicting a relationship between an older woman and young man, and Gigi, the story of a young girl in training to become a courtesan. Colette died in 1954.
Belinda Jack (Translator)
Belinda Jack is the author of an acclaimed biography of George Sand and Beatrice's Spell: The Enduring Legend of Beatrice Cenci.
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette was born in 1873 in a village in Burgundy, France, and would later recall her bucolic home and eccentric family in the semi-fictionalized Claudine's House. At the age of twenty, she married the publisher and author 'Willy', who encouraged her to write her first four novels. The novels made her famous, but her husband, under whose name they had been published, retained her earnings. Escaping her marriage, Colette became a performer in France's music halls, an era of her life she would later describe in The Vagabond. She wrote her most famous works during the 1920s and 30s; these included Cheri, depicting a relationship between an older woman and young man, and Gigi, the story of a young girl in training to become a courtesan. Colette died in 1954.
Belinda Jack (Translator)
Belinda Jack is the author of an acclaimed biography of George Sand and Beatrice's Spell: The Enduring Legend of Beatrice Cenci.