{"product_id":"the-pure-and-the-impure-isbn-9780940322486","title":"The Pure and the Impure","description":"Colette herself considered \u003ci\u003eThe Pure and the Impure\u003c\/i\u003e her best book, \"the nearest I shall ever come to writing an autobiography.\" This guided tour of the erotic netherworld with which Colette was so intimately acquainted begins in the darkness and languor of a fashionable opium den. It continues as a series of unforgettable encounters with men and, especially, women whose lives have been improbably and yet permanently transfigured by the strange power of desire. Lucid and lyrical, \u003ci\u003eThe Pure and the Impure\u003c\/i\u003e stands out as one of modern literature's subtlest reckonings not only with the varieties of sexual experience, but with the always unlikely nature of love.Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette [1873-1954], was born in the village of  Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, where she led an idyllic childhood. At the age  of twenty, she married Henri Gauthier-Villars, known as Willy, a  Parisian man of letters under whose name she published the \u003ci\u003eClaudine\u003c\/i\u003e novels. Separated from Willy in 1905, Colette supported herself as an  actress before establishing her own reputation as a writer. She was  celebrated in later years as one of the great figures of  twentieth-century French life and letters, and was the first woman to be  accorded a state funeral by the French Republic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJudith Thurman is the author of \u003ci\u003eSecrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette\u003c\/i\u003e and of \u003ci\u003eIsak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the National Book Award for Biography in 1983. She is a widely published literary critic, cultural journalist, and translator of poetry.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304401522917,"sku":"NP9780940322486","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780940322486.jpg?v=1767741113","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-pure-and-the-impure-isbn-9780940322486","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}