Willie had already decided that his young wife would be one of his ghosts. There was a lot of salacious interest in france at the time. She perhaps compromised an original vision to put in the slightly more salacio details about teachers having sex affairs with each other. Girls flirting with teachers. Youngish girls such as claudine, i think she's 16, being gratified and embarrassed and humiliated to be pored by visiting school inspectors. But it was a very good education for somebody who's writing her first book.
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