David Golder

159 pages. text lightly tannedFrom the author of the bestselling Suite Franaise. Translated by Sandra Smi th, with an introduction by Patrick Marnham. In 1929, 26-year-old Irne Nmirovs ky shot to fame in France with the publication of her second novel David Golder. At the time, only the most prescient would have predicted the events that led t o her extraordinary final novel Suite Franaise and her death at Auschwitz. Yet t he clues are there in this astonishingly mature story of an elderly Jewish busin essman who has sold his soul. Golder is a superb creation. Born into poverty o n the Black Sea, he has clawed his way to fabulous wealth by speculating on gold and oil. When the novel opens, he is at work in his magnificent Parisian apartm ent while his wife and beloved daughter, Joyce`, spend his money at their villa in Biarritz. But Golder's security is fragile. For years he has defended his bus iness interests from cut-throat competitors. Now his health is beginning to show the strain. As his body betrays him, so too do his wife and child, leaving him to decide which to pursue: revenge or altruism? Available for the first time s ince 1930, David Golder is a page-turningly chilling and brilliant portrait of t he frenzied capitalism of the 1920s and a universal parable about the mirage of wealth.…