Tuesday Jul 07, 2026
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
POWERHOUSE Arena
28 Adams Street (Corner of Adams & Water Street across from the Archway)
Brooklyn , NY
11201
About the Book.
Journey through the sexual underworld of Belle Époque Paris in the first new English translation of Colette’s masterpiece in nearly sixty years.
Lyrical, allusive, sometimes obscure, yet precise, The Pure and the Impure has elicited equal parts consternation and praise since its publication nearly 100 years ago. Colette herself was unequivocal: “I believe it to be my best book.” Through strikingly vivid and evocative portraits, many of them of her friends and lovers, Colette explores varieties of sexual expression, gender identity, love, and sensual pleasure. Decades ahead of its time in contemplating queerness and women’s sexuality, The Pure and the Impure provides a fascinating window into the sexual demimondes of the Parisian Belle Époque: We meet cross-dressing lesbians, a sapphic poet, Don Juans male and female, the circle of gay men whose companionship saw Colette through the difficult years of her first marriage, and Colette’s onetime lover Missy—La Chevalière—who might today be a transgender man. At the same time, the book offers a unique portrait of a complex and often contradictory character: Colette herself. The “brilliantly ingenious” (Lydia Davis) translator Rachel Careau offers readers a lean, elegant, and highly readable rendition that reproduces Colette’s extraordinary musicality, making her “perfect, lapidary and truth-bearing sentences” (Terry Castle) sing for English readers.
About the Translator.
Rachel Careau’s translation of Colette’s “Chéri” and “The End of Chéri” was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. A 2019 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Translation Fellow, she lives in Hudson, New York..
About the Moderator.
Jeffrey Lependorf, a composer, performer, and visual artist, serves as Executive Director of the John Cage Trust. A longtime member of the literary community, he has formerly served as Executive Director of the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses, Small Press Distribution, and The Flow Chart Foundation, and currently also directs the Art Omi: Music international musicians’ residency, a program that he created. He most recently edited Something Close to Music: Late Art Writing, Poems, and Playlists of John Ashbery (David Zwirner Books). For more information, visit www.jeffreylependorf.com.