In Our Time

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In Our Time: Colette

27/01/2022

Colette

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Colette

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a major force in French culture in the 20th century.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the novels and life of one of the most remarkable writers of the last century, whose Claudine series was first published under her husband's name.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss  one of the outstanding French writers of the twentieth century.  The novels of Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873 - 1954) always had women at their centre, from youth to mid-life to old age, and they were phenomenally popular, at first for their freshness and frankness about women’s lives, as in the Claudine stories, and soon for their sheer quality as she developed as a writer.  Throughout her career she intrigued readers by inserting herself, or a character with her name, into her works, fictionalising her life as a way to share her insight into the human experience.

With 

Diana Holmes
Professor of French at the University of Leeds

Michèle Roberts
Writer, novelist, poet and Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia

And

Belinda Jack
Fellow and Tutor in French Literature and Language at Christ Church, University of Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson

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