A moving testimony by the Russian-French writer Irene Nemirovsky documents the plight of Parisian Jews during the early years of WWII, telling of the personal trials that the ordinary citizens had to live through.
It took 60 years for Nemirovsky’s eldest daughter to summon the courage to open the precious manuscript that her mother had left her.
“Catastrophes go by and one just has to try to not go under before them, that’s all,” she says.
In this posthumous publication, Irene traces the innumerable small acts of cowardice and the fragile attempts at solidarity of a population that is undermined by the Nazi occupation.
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.
Prolific writing
Irene Nemirovsky was conceived “Suite Francaise” as a four- or five-part novel. Although only two sections were finished before her tragic death, they form a book that is beautifully complete in itself, and awe-inspiring in its understanding of humanity.
Born in Kiev in 1903 as the daughter of a wealthy banker, Irene Nemirovsky received a French education. During the Bolshevik revolution, the Nemirovskys fled to France. There, Irene studied literature and started publishing novels under a pseudonym.
She married, had two daughters, and continued her prolific writing career. During the Nazi occupation, Irene and her family were forced to flee to a remote seaside village.
There she continued to write and publish until her arrest by French gendarmes. She was deported to Auschwitz and, despite the tireless efforts of her publisher to have her released, she died there in 1942.
“Suite Francaise” by Irene Nemirovsky is published at Gallimard.