One of the most famous erotic novels of all time.
‘A rare thing, a pornographic book well written and without a trace of obscenity’
Graham Greene
‘A highly literary and imaginative work, the brilliance of whose style leaves no-one in doubt whatever of the author’s genius . . . a profoundly disturbing book, as well as a black tour-de-force’
Spectator
‘Here all kinds of terrors await us, but like a baby taking its mother’s milk all pains are assuaged. Touched by the magic of love, everything is transformed. Story of O is a deeply moral homily’
J. G. Ballard
‘Cool, cruel, formalistic fantasy about a woman subjected – at the price of the great love of her life – to the gamut of male sado-masochistic urges’
Birmingham Post
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‘One of the most explicit books about sex ever written by a woman’
Edmund White
The Sexual Life of Catherine M. is the autobiography of a well-known Parisian art critic who likes to spend nights in the singles clubs of Paris and in the Bois de Boulogne where she has sex with a succession of anonymous men. Unlike many contemporary women writers, there is no guilt in Millet’s narrative, no chronicles of use and abuse: on the contrary, she has no regrets about a life of sexual activity. Catherine Millet’s writing is a subtle reflection on the boundaries of art and life and she uses her insights on the role of the body in modern art to set the scene for her multiple sexual encounters.
A penomenal bestseller in France and in all other countries in which it has been published, The Sexual Life of Catherine M. is very much a manifesto of our times – when the sexual equality of women is a reality and where love and sex have gone their own separate ways. Like the Story of O, it is a truly shocking book that captures a decisive moment in our sexual history.
‘I thought it was the most honest book I had ever read on the subject of sex’
Rowan Pelling, Daily Telegraph
‘A brilliant testimony of life spent at the sexual front line’
Independent on Sunday
‘Unabashed erotica . . . a straight-talking romp catalogued with savage wit by a Parisian intellectual’
The Scotsman
‘Millet writes extremely well . . . it is neither pornography nor her coy younger sister, erotica, but a work of libertine philosophy’
Times Literary Supplement
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