Suite Française
(2004) by Irène Némirovsky
I
remember hearing about this book (and how fantastic it was) when it
was first published in English in 2004 (yes, it took me this long to
get around to reading it. Sigh). Némirovsky, a well-known,
respected, and prolific Russian-French author, had written Suite
Française
while trying to stay one step ahead of the Nazis as they invaded
France in 1940. Despite having lived in France for years and
converting to Roman Catholicism, Némirovsky was nonetheless targeted
because of her Jewish heritage. The letters included in the Vintage
edition reveal the desperate attempts of the writer's husband and
publisher to release her from the concentration camp to which she was
confined. She died, though, in 1942, before any help could come.
