A wonderful, panoramic novel and an achingly poignant love story from the bestselling author of
Suite Française.
Ada grows up motherless in the Jewish pogroms of a Ukrainian city in the early years of the twentieth century. In the same city, Harry Sinner, the cosseted son of a city financier, belongs to a very different world. Eventually, in search of a brighter future, Ada moves to Paris and makes a living painting scenes from the world she has left behind. Harry Sinner also comes to Paris to mingle in exclusive circles, until one day he buys two paintings which remind him of his past…and the course of Ada’s life changes once more.
But then recession and revolutions shake previously rich regimes. As summer draws to a close, Ada’s world is disintegrating, and she is faced with a fateful decision.
Author ProfileIrène Némirovsky was born in Kiev in 1903, the daughter of a 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, as well as of the recent posthumously published
Suite Française and
Fire in the Blood. T
he 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. Némirovsky died in Auschwitz in 1942.
ReviewsWritten with tremendous assurance and finesse,
The Dogs and the Wolves is an outstanding achievement of European fiction,Nemirovsky was incapable of producing anything less than an enchanting novel. She has an irresistible talent for creating character and incident which makes this story as much a page-turner as anything she has written,The pleasure of this fine novel lies in its depiction of a doomed love affair- but more than anything what moves the reader are Nemirovsky’s exquisite descriptions of character, which reveal a brilliantly sharp eye,A sad and beautifully written tale,Nemirovksy is a deeply engaged observer of her characters, and her depiction of the inner lives of both Jews and Gentiles in Sandra Smith’s admirable translation of this exquisitely detailed novel, has the fine, authentic ring of artistic truth,She elegantly uses traditional orchestration, which makes her works, for all their weighty concerns, universally accessible and stirringly romantic,It has a classic feel; a book to be revisited in the hope of finding more delights within,Most autobiographically illuminating and engrossing [of her novels] so far
