Books in the Penguin European Writers series

VIOLETTE LEDUC was born in Arras in 1907, the illegitimate child of a servant girl. Sent to boarding school before the First World War, Violette was later expelled upon the discovery of her love affair with both another female pupil and her music teacher. During the Second World War she published her memoir, The Bastard, which scandalized the literary world with its explicit account of lesbian love, sold 150,000 copies in its first year, and earned her the acclaim of Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre and Camus. In 2013 a film was made of her life, Violette. She died in 1972.

With a new introduction by Polly Samson, Sunday Times bestselling author of A THEATRE FOR DREAMERS 'Gorgeous... the written equivalent of lying in the sun eating figs' India Knight, Sunday Times'That summer we bought big straw hats. Maria's had cherries around the rim, Infanta's had forget-me-nots, and mine had poppies as red as fire. . .'Three Summers is a warm and tender tale of three sisters growing up in the countryside near Athens before the Second World War. Living in a ramshackle old house with their divorced mother are flirtatious, hot-headed Maria, beautiful but distant Infanta, and dreamy and rebellious Katerina, through whose eyes the story is mostly observed. Over three summers, the girls share and keep secrets, fall in and out of love, try to understand the strange ways of adults and decide what kind of adults they hope to become.'The sun has disappeared from books these days... You are one of those who pass it on' Albert Camus to Margarita Liberaki 'The literary equivalent of a sun-soaked holiday in Greece' Culture Whisper'A leisurely, large-hearted coming-of-age novel, earthy and innocent, nostalgic and beautifully rendered' Kirkus'A dreamy, cinematic tapestry of Greek village life' NPR