Suite Francaise.

IRENE NEMIROVSKY

Publication: Chatto & Windus, 2006, London

First U.K. edition. Fine in dust jacket. Translated from the French by Sandra Smith. First published in France in 2004. "In 1941, Irene Nemirovsky sat down to write a book that would convey the magnitude of what she was living through, not in terms of battles and politicians, but by evoking the domestic lives and personal trials of the ordinary citizens of France. Set during a year that begins with France's fall to the Nazis in June 1940 and ends with Germany turning its attention to Russia, Suite Francaise falls into two parts. The first is a brilliant depiction of a group of Parisians as they flee the Nazi invasion and make their way through the chaos of France; the second follows the inhabitants of a small rural community under occupation who find themselves thrown together in ways they never expected. Nemirovsky's brilliance as a writer lay in her portrayal of people, and this is a novel that teems with wonderful characters, each more vivid than the next. Haughty aristocrats, bourgeois bankers and snobbish aesthetes rub shoulders with uncouth workers and bolshy farmers. Women variously resist or succumb to the charms of German soldiers. However, amidst the mess of defeat, and all the hypocrisy and compromise, there is hope. True nobility and love exist, but often in surprising places." Irene Nemirovsky was a highly respected author living in Paris, but she was also a Jew. In 1942, she was arrested and taken to Auschwitz where she died one month later at the age of thirty-nine. The handwritten manuscripts were taken by her daughters into hiding and eventually into freedom.

Inventory Number: 23836Sold -- Contact us