Written between 1934 and 1942, these ten stories cover the details of social class; the tensions between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives; the manners and mannerisms of the French bourgeoisie; and questions of religion and personal identity. The stories move from the drawing rooms of prewar Paris to the lives of men and women in wartime France.
Dimanche = Sunday --
Les rivages heureux = Those happy shores --
Liens du sang = Flesh and blood --
Fraternité = Brotherhood --
La femme de don Juan = Don Juan's wife --
Le sortilège = The spell --
Le spectateur = The spectator --
Monsieur Rose = Mr. Rose --
La confidente = The confidante --
L'inconnu = The unknown soldier
Irene Nemirovsky (1903-1942), was born in Kiev, Ukraine, into a wealthy banking family and emigrated to France during the Russian Revolution. After attending the Sorbonne in Paris, she began to write and swiftly achieved success with David Golder, which was followed by more than a dozen other books. Throughout her lifetime she published widely in French newspapers and literary journals. She died in Auschwitz in 1942. More than sixty years later, Suite Francaise was published posthumously, for the first time. It became an international bestseller, with nearly a million copies in print in the United States alone.