Claudine's House

Colette's irresistible depiction of a childhood in rural France, in a lush new translation

‘I will never be able to help anyone imagine the splendour, bound up in my memories’

Claudine lives in a large house with a rose-filled garden and a vegetable patch smelling of tomato leaves and apricots. Beyond it is the village, where travelling performers stop for the night and wedding feasts take place under a bright summer moon. Inside her house are Mama, who loves animals, Papa, who lost his leg in the war, and a library full of irresistible books. Based on Colette’s own early life, Claudine’s House is a vivid, enchanting depiction of childhood, memory and the passing of time in late-nineteenth-century France.