Ira]ne Namirovsky: Her Life and Works - Hardcover

by Jonathan Weiss (Author)

Irène Némirovsky: Her Life and Works, the first English-language biography of the author of the internationally acclaimed novel, Suite Française, is an intimate portrait of a woman who bore witness to the tragedies that befell France in the early days of the occupation, and who herself became a victim of the Nazi regime. The result of close textual analysis of her work and primary documents passed on from Némirovsky herself, this fascinating book explores a literary work that revisits in a unique way Jewish identity, exile, betrayal, and the solidarity of a persecuted people.

Front Jacket

On July 13, 1942, French gendarmes arrested Irene Nemirovsky in southern Burgundy. She was deported to Auschwitz where she died on August 19. Who was this woman, author of more than a dozen popular novels and more than thirty short stories, whose posthumous novel, Suite Francaise, won France's prestigious Renaudot prize in 2004? Born in Russia to wealthy parents, Irene Nemirovsky immigrated to Paris in 1919. Although she was Jewish, she consorted with authors and politicians on the extreme right, some of whom were openly anti-Semitic. She was sure that these friends would protect her from deportation after the Nazis invaded France. Instead, they abandoned her. Yet she never lost faith in France, even after she was refused French nationality. In this fascinating biography, Jonathan Weiss analyzes the discrepancy between Nemirovsky's real and imagined identities, and explores a literary work that revisits in a unique way Jewish identity, exile, betrayal, and the solidarity of a persecuted people.

Back Jacket

This short critical biography by Weiss, an expert on contemporary French literature, is a fine introduction to her work.--Publishers Weekly
..".A brief, but intensely thought-provoking biography by Jonathan Weiss..."
--The San Francisco Chronicle

Author Biography

Jonathan Weiss is Professor of French Language and Literature at Colby College. In 1996, he met Irène Némirovsky's two daughters. With their help, he was able to consult all the documents that their mother had passed on to them. This biography is the result of that research and of close textual analysis of Némirovsky's literary work.