Chéri translator ‘inhabits’ Colette
Paul Eprile’s newest translation allows a new generation of English speaking readers into the century old world of Chéri, written by French author Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette.
First published in 1920, Colette’s novel about an aging courtesan and her young lover, Chéri has been translated and published by NYRB Classics, along with its sequel La Fin de Chéri, published in 1926.
Eprile, a Dunedin area resident, is an award winning translator of three books by French author Jean Giono.
“They both used the French language in a way no one else had used it, he said. “And each had a distinctive style.”
Eprile said he found translating Colette to be a very different process. Where he had to decipher Giono’s idioms, Eprile said he was surprised how much easier it was to translate Colette.
Still, it is the translator’s duty to consider every possible equivalent within different contexts to extract the best possible option, therefore remaining true to the original essence of the text.
In translation, Eprile said, one has to consider nuance, tone, rhythm, and phrasing among other things.
An introduction by Colette biographer Judith Thurman, author of Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette says, “Colette’s fiction is as undoubting to translate as poetry. It demands an ideal of purity as ruthless as her own… Her translator needs some of the traits she prized in a lover: selfless patience, undistracted prowess, a lithe imagination,” she continues. “I have never wanted to read Colette in English because she has never sounded like Colette. Finally, in this volume, she does. Eprile inhabits her.”
Colette was born in 1873 and began her literary career as ghost-writer for her husband, Willy, who published the Claudine novels in his name. The story is the subject of the 2019 Hollywood film Colette, starring Keira Knightly.
Colette worked as a journalist, mime and actress, and reestablished herself as a writer, publishing several novels, including the famous Gigi.
Eprile said he believes Chéri has a theatrical quality to the writing, and is a “potent satire” of the Bourgeoisie, of the relationships between men and women, and of the underbelly of French society of the time.
Chéri and La Fin de Chéri are also an exploration of sexuality and love, by an author who didn’t conform to traditional relationships and expectations of women.
“Lea is a vehicle or a conduit for some of Colette’s own feelings and thought about aging,” said Eprile. NYRB is launching the book in New York in February, marking the 150th anniversary of Colette’s birth.
Chéri and The End of Chéri is bound as one book, available online at www.nyrb.com and on Amazon.
