Speaking for Colette: Story Telling, Literary Tourism, and La Maison de Colette

When the house that Sidonie-Gabrielle-Colette lived in for the first 18 years of her life went on the market and was purchased by La Société des amis de Colette in 2010, the organization was faced with an enormous challenge. With plans to restore the house as authentically as possible in order for visitors to experience what the house and gardens were like during Colette’s childhood, they also needed to create a narrative to accompany the guided tour of La Maison de Colette when they opened the doors to the public in May, 2016. The task fell to Frédéric Maget, Director of La Maison de Colette, and current president of La Société des amis de Colette. Maget drew on studies of literary tourism that focused on the strategy of “storytelling” to create a personal experience for visitors; he examined successful models of other Maisons d’écrivains such as George Sand’s house in Nohant, and he also reread Colette’s entire work, searching for material to incorporate into the guided tour that would highlight the importance of the years Colette spent living with her family in the small Burgundian village of Saint-Sauveur-en Puisaye. Maget was especially interested in using Colette’s childhood home to establish a foundation for her development into a writer, and in shaping the narrative and the physical space of La Maison de Colette to serve as an “initiation à la lecture de Colette.” Based on multiple visits to La Maison de Colette and interviews with the director and the guides that work there, this presentation examines the story that was created about Colette, its connection with her writing, and especially the notion of her maison natale as a “Maison-livre.”