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Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
Irene Nemirovsky was a Ukrainian-born Jew living and writing in Paris. In 1940, she and her family left Paris ahead of the invading German army. She spent two years completing two parts of a five-part novel, before being arrested and sent to her death at Auschwitz. Her daughters saved her manuscript, and now her novel, Suite Francaise has been published, including the two parts and an appendix containing some of her notes for the final three parts. The first novella, "A Storm in June," tells the story of the vast migration from Paris to the countryside that took place in June, 1940, following several families of different classes fleeing ahead of the Germans. The second novella, "Dolce," follows the lives of the French citizens in a German-occupied village. Each resident must decide to accept, resist, or collaborate with the Germans, each trying to find a mode of survival which carries consequences for their friends and neighbors. Suite Francaise has received many glowing reviews with Salon.com saying, "Suite Francaise is a singularly piercing evocation—at once subtle and severe, deeply compassionate and fiercely ironic—of life and death in occupied France, and a brilliant, profoundly moving work of art."
