This episode is a chapter from Complicated Women by Bee Wilson, a new LRB audiobook, based on pieces first published in the London Review of Books. Wilson explores the lives of ten figures, from Lola Montez to Vivienne Westwood, who challenged the limitations imposed on women in dramatically different ways. In this free chapter, she describes the ways that Edith Piaf’s life and art embodied the needs of her public, and how she became a symbol of postwar French resilience.

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Buy the audiobook here and listen in your preferred podcast app: https://lrb.me/audio

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