Chéri

For the first time available from Penguin Classics U.S., a new translation of Colette’s celebrated and provocative 1920 novella of forbidden love

A Penguin Classic

Chéri: spoiled, petulant, beautiful, aged twenty-five. Léa: magnificent, brilliant, remorseless, aged forty-nine. They are in love, but their relationship exists beyond the bounds of social acceptability and must one day come to an end, no matter the cost.

A succès de scandale on publication for its depiction of transgressive love, Colette’s celebrated novella is also a profound and compelling exploration of the passage of time, the body and aging, self-perception, self-knowledge, and the tragedy of mortality.