‘It is quite outstanding, full of beauty, pain and truth…’ The Sunday Telegraph

Comparison: Lucretia Grindle
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Synopsis

In June 1940 France fell to the Nazis. The effect of this event on the lives of ordinary Parisians and the inhabitants of a small rural community under occupation are brilliantly explored in Irene Nemirovsky's heartbreaking novel. A tragic victim of the Nazi regime, Nemirovsky left behind this masterpiece in which she conjures up a vivid cast of characters, thrown together in ways they never expected. Amidst the mess of defeat, true nobility and love exist, but often in surprising places.

Reviews

'Deftly translated by Sandra Smith, this is possibly the most devastating indictment of French manners and morals since Madame Bovary, as hypnotic as Proust at the biscuit tin, as gruelling as Genet on the prowl. Irène Nemirovsky is, on this evidence, a novelist of the very first order, perceptive to a fault and sly in her emotional restraint' - Evening Standard

'Remarkable as the story of the publication of Suite Française is, it will finally be of anecdotal interest compared with the importance of the book. Here is the work of a fine novelist at the top of her form, writing about the fate of her adopted country with a pitiless clarity' - Patrick Marnham

'[I]t is certain to be the toast of publisher...evokes the heroism, brutality and cowardice of a country under occupation...critics are united in acclaiming it as one of the most important novels about the occupation' - Sunday Times

'Suite Francaise is one of those rare books that demands to be read' - Helen Dunmore, Guardian

About the Author

Irène Némirovsky was born in Kiev in 1903, the daughter of a successful Jewish banker. In 1918 her family fled the Russian Revolution for France where she became a bestselling novelist, author of David Golder, Le Bal, The Courilof Affair, All Our Worldly Goods and other works published in her lifetime or soon after, such as the posthumously published Suite Française and Fire in the Blood. The Dogs and the Wolves, now appearing for the first time in English, was published in France in spring 1940, just months before France fell to the Nazis. She was prevented from publishing when the Germans occupied France and moved with her husband and two small daughters from Paris to the safety of the small village of Issy-l’Evêque (in German occupied territory). It was here that Irène began writing Suite Française. She died in Auschwitz in 1942. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation