Reading Joseph Heller's classic satire is nothing less than a rite of passage.

Set in the closing months of World War II, this is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him.

Teenager terrible Cecile explores her sexual freedom one hot summer on the French Riviera 'Late into the night we talked of love, of its complications. In my father's eyes they were imaginary. . . This conception of rapid, violent and passing love affairs appealed to my imagination. I was not at the age when fidelity is attractive. I knew very little about love.' The French Riviera- home to the Beautiful People. And none are more beautiful than Cecile, a precocious seventeen-year-old, and her father Raymond, a vivacious libertine. Charming, decadent and irresponsible, the golden-skinned duo are dedicated to a life of free love, fast cars and hedonistic pleasures. But then, one long, hot summer Raymond decides to marry, and Cecile and her lover Cyril feel compelled to take a hand in his amours, with tragic consequences. Bonjour Tristesse scandalized 1950s France with its portrayal of teenager terrible Cecile, a heroine who rejects conventional notions of love, marriage and responsibility to choose her own sexual freedom.

Details

ISBN13: 9780241951569
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 112
Edition:
Publication Date: 16 May 2011
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Publication City, Country: London, United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 181(H)x110(L)x8(W)68
Weight (gm): 68

Author Biography

Fran oise Sagan was born in France in 1935. Bonjour tristesse (1954), published when she was just 19, became a succ s de scandale and even earned its author a papal denunciation. Sagan went on to write many other novels, plays and screenplays, and died in 2004.

Reviews

A funny, thoroughly immoral and thoroughly French tale * The Times *
The novel that paved the way for the permissive society...one of the literary sensations of the century * Daily Telegraph *
Francoise Sagan is the French F. Scott Fitzgerald * Guardian *