Chéri: A New Translation

By Colette

Book Overview

For six years, L a has kept the beautiful Ch ri as her lover-but she knows their affair cannot last forever.

L a de Lonval, a magnificent courtesan in the twilight of her career, has enjoyed a passionate liaison with Fred Peloux, known to all as Ch ri. He is half her age: spoiled, vain, and irresistibly lovely. Their relationship is an open secret in the demimonde of 1920s Paris, where aging beauties and wealthy young men move through a world of luxury and languor.

But Ch ri is engaged to be married, and the time has come for their affair to end. What should be a sophisticated, painless parting becomes something far more devastating. As L a struggles to reclaim her independence and Ch ri attempts to accept his new role as husband, both discover that what seemed like an arrangement of convenience has become an obsession neither can escape.

Witty, sensuous, and heartbreaking, Ch ri is Colette's unflinching portrait of desire, aging, and the cruel passage of time-a masterpiece of French literature that scandalized and captivated readers upon its publication and remains as fresh and provocative today.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0FVF5SF6X
• ISBN13: 9798268946673
• Release Date: October 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Very classic, richly layered, and readable.

Cheri is a novel about a young Frenchman whose mistress, an older woman, indulges him and instructs him in the arts of love and life until he marries. Cheri is remarkably child-like right up to the eve of his marriage and beyond. After the marriage to a suitably aged young woman, he longs for his old mistress's pampering, her familiar apartments, and the life they shared there.I found the book a wonderful story and a rich, redolent escape from the realities of our modern world. It takes the reader back to a time just before WWI, when life moved a bit slower. The way Colette writes, slips the reader into a place easily imaginable; comfortable as one's own sofa.