A beautiful new Vintage Classics edition of the long-lost classic and bestseller
In June 1940 France fell to the Nazis. The effects of this momentous event on the lives of ordinary Parisians and the inhabitants of a small rural community under occupation are brilliantly explored in Irène Némirovsky’s gripping and heartbreaking novel. Némirovsky herself was a tragic victim of the Nazi regime but she left behind her this exceptional masterpiece. In Suite Française she conjures up a vivid cast of wonderful characters who find themselves thrown together in ways they never expected. Amidst the mess of defeat, and all the hypocrisy and compromise, there is hope. True nobility and love exist, but often in surprising places.
Author Biography
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 . 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.
Translated by Sandra Smith.
Reviews
[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,It is quite outstanding, full of beauty, pain and truth…We are lucky to have this book,An irresistible work.
Suite Francaise clutches the heart,
Suite Francaise is the most powerful account of that time and place many of us have ever read…this extraordinary woman’s work is receiving the celebration it deserves. I defy anyone to read it without tears of admiration and pity for its author,
Suite Francaise is one of those rare books that demands to be read,A book of exceptional literary quality, it has the kind of intimacy found in the diary of Anne Frank,What is to me most remarkable is the degree to which Nemirovsky, writing so close to the event, has nevertheless distilled it to extract the significance of each moment and episode. it is literature, not journalism... Her novel is in the classic French tradition, intelligent and sensuous,The work of a genuine artist,An almost unbearably moving account of the French debacle of 1940,Displays an extraordinary human sensitivity
