My Mother's House

"This book is a much-needed, new version of Colette's La Maison de Claudine. It addresses the need for an overdue, careful reading and translation of this classic novel, important given Colette's status in world literature, the inadequacy of the earlier versions-the most widely used omits six significant chapters-and the changing attitudes on motherhood and sexual orientation. As the BBC notes, "The Most Beloved French writer of all time. . . . An icon in her native France, Colette's scandalous life and works still captivate readers 150 years on from her birth, writes John Self." The topic at the center of the novel, her passion for her mother Sido, in fact gives rise to her writing taken as a whole"--