Irène Némirovsky
Encyclopedia
Irène Némirovsky was a French novelist who died at the age of 39 in Auschwitz, Nazi Germany
occupied Poland
. She was killed by the Nazis for being classified as a Jew under the racial laws, which did not take into account her conversion to Roman Catholicism.
, then in the Russian Empire
, the daughter of a banker from Kiev, Léon Némirovsky. Her volatile and unhappy relationship with her mother became the heart of many of her novels.
The Némirovsky family fled the Russian Empire at the start of the Russian Revolution
in 1917, spending a year in Finland in 1918 and then settling in Paris
, France
, where Irène attended the Sorbonne
and began writing when she was 18 years old.
In 1926, Irène Némirovsky married Michel Epstein, a banker, and had two daughters: Denise, born in 1929; and Élisabeth, in 1937.
In 1929 she published David Golder
, the story of a Jewish banker unable to please his troubled daughter, which was an immediate success, and was adapted to the big screen by Julien Duvivier
in 1930, with Harry Baur
as David Golder. In 1930 her novel Le Bal, the story of a mistreated daughter and the revenge of a teenager, became a play and a movie.
The David Golder manuscript was sent by post to the Grasset publisher with a Poste restante
address and signed Epstein. H. Muller, a reader for Grasset immediately tried to find the author but couldn't get hold of him/her. Grasset put an ad in the newspapers hoping to find the author, but the author was "busy": she was having her first child, Denise. When Irène finally showed up as the author of David Golder, the unverified story is that the publisher was surprised that such a young woman was able to write such a powerful book.
Although she was widely recognized as a major author – even by some anti-Semitic
writers like Robert Brasillach
– French citizenship was denied to the Némirovskys in 1938.
Irène Némirovsky was of Russian
-Jewish origin, but converted to Catholicism
in 1939 and wrote in Candide and Gringoire
, two magazines with anti-Semitic tendencies, perhaps partly to hide the family's Jewish origins and thereby protect their children from growing anti-Semitic persecution.
By 1940, Némirovsky's husband was unable to continue working at the bank after his death from the second world war– and Irène's books could no longer be published – because of their Jewish ancestry. Upon the Nazis' approach to Paris
, they fled with their two daughters to the village of Issy-l'Evêque
(the Némirovskys initially sent them to live with their nanny's family in Burgundy while staying on in Paris themselves; they had already lost their Russia
n home and refused to lose their home in France), where Némirovsky was required to wear the Yellow badge
.
On 13 July 1942, Irène Némirovsky (then 39) was arrested as a "stateless person of Jewish descent" by French police under the regulations of the German occupation
. The Gestapo had contacted the RSHA to clarify the measures to be used against her, Ernst Kaltenbrunner ordered her to be gassed, as he considered her a "degenerate artist of deluded Jewish hegemony". As she was being taken away, she told her daughters, "I am going on a journey now." She was brought to a convoy assembly camp at Pithiviers
and on 17 July 1942, together with 928 other Jewish deportees, transported to German concentration camp Auschwitz. Upon her arrival there two days later, her forearm was marked with an identification number
. According to official papers at the time, she died a month later of typhus
. Subsequent records revealed that Irène was actually gassed there by the Nazis.
On 6 November 1942 her husband, Michel Epstein, was sent to Auschwitz and immediately put to death in a gas chamber
.
(Denoël, France, 2004, ISBN 2207256456; translation by Sandra Smith, Knopf, 2006, ISBN 1400044731), two novella
s portraying life in France
between 4 June 1940 and 1 July 1941, the period during which the Nazis occupied Paris
. These works are considered remarkable because they were written during the actual period itself, and yet are the product of considered reflection, rather than just a journal of events, as might be expected considering the personal turmoil experienced by the author at the time.
Némirovsky's older daughter, Denise, kept the notebook containing the manuscript for Suite Française for fifty years without reading it, thinking it was a journal or diary of her mother's, which would be too painful to read. In the late 1990s, however, she made arrangements to donate her mother's papers to a French archive and decided to examine the notebook first. Upon discovering what it contained, she instead had it published in France, where it became a bestseller
in 2004. It has since been translated into 38 languages and as of 2008 has sold 2.5 million copies.
The original manuscript has been given to the Institut mémoires de l'édition contemporaine (IMEC), and the novel has won the Prix Renaudot
– the first time the prize has been awarded posthumously.
Némirovsky's surviving notes sketch a general outline of a story arc
that was intended to include the two existing novellas, as well as three more to take place later during the war and at its end. She wrote that the rest of the work was "in limbo, and what limbo! It's really in the lap of the gods since it depends on what happens."
In a January 2006 interview with the BBC, her daughter, Denise, said, "For me, the greatest joy is knowing that the book is being read. It is an extraordinary feeling to have brought my mother back to life. It shows that the Nazis did not truly succeed in killing her. It is not vengeance, but it is a victory."
Myriam Anissimov's introduction to the French edition of Suite Française describes Némirovsky as a "self-hating Jew", due to the fact that Némirovsky's own situation as a Jew in France is not at all seen in the work. The paragraph was omitted from the English edition.
A long article in The Jewish Quarterly
argued that there had been an "abdication of critical responsibility in exchange for the more sensational copy to be had from Némirovsky’s biography" by most reviewers in the British press.
It should be noted that not everyone agrees with these views and anyone reading and discovering for themselves the sensitivity and depth of Nemirovsky's writing may well come to a different conclusion.
Critical reviews of Suite Française
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
occupied Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. She was killed by the Nazis for being classified as a Jew under the racial laws, which did not take into account her conversion to Roman Catholicism.
Biography
Irène Némirovsky was born in 1903 in KievKiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
, then in the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
, the daughter of a banker from Kiev, Léon Némirovsky. Her volatile and unhappy relationship with her mother became the heart of many of her novels.
The Némirovsky family fled the Russian Empire at the start of the Russian Revolution
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
in 1917, spending a year in Finland in 1918 and then settling in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, where Irène attended the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
and began writing when she was 18 years old.
In 1926, Irène Némirovsky married Michel Epstein, a banker, and had two daughters: Denise, born in 1929; and Élisabeth, in 1937.
In 1929 she published David Golder
David Golder
David Golder is writer Irène Némirovsky's first novel. It was recently re-issued following the popularity of the newly-discovered masterpiece Suite Française, written by Némirovsky whilst in hiding in France during the Second World War...
, the story of a Jewish banker unable to please his troubled daughter, which was an immediate success, and was adapted to the big screen by Julien Duvivier
Julien Duvivier
Julien Duvivier was a French film director. He was prominent in French cinema in the years 1930-1960...
in 1930, with Harry Baur
Harry Baur
Harry Baur was a French actor. Baur was Jewish and tortured to death by the Gestapo during World War II....
as David Golder. In 1930 her novel Le Bal, the story of a mistreated daughter and the revenge of a teenager, became a play and a movie.
The David Golder manuscript was sent by post to the Grasset publisher with a Poste restante
Poste restante
Poste restante or general delivery is a service where the post office holds mail until the recipient calls for it...
address and signed Epstein. H. Muller, a reader for Grasset immediately tried to find the author but couldn't get hold of him/her. Grasset put an ad in the newspapers hoping to find the author, but the author was "busy": she was having her first child, Denise. When Irène finally showed up as the author of David Golder, the unverified story is that the publisher was surprised that such a young woman was able to write such a powerful book.
Although she was widely recognized as a major author – even by some anti-Semitic
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
writers like Robert Brasillach
Robert Brasillach
Robert Brasillach was a French author and journalist. Brasillach is best known as the editor of Je suis partout, a nationalist newspaper which came to advocate various fascist movements and supported Jacques Doriot...
– French citizenship was denied to the Némirovskys in 1938.
Irène Némirovsky was of Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
-Jewish origin, but converted to Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
in 1939 and wrote in Candide and Gringoire
Gringoire (newspaper)
Gringoire was a political and literary weekly newspaper in France, founded in 1928 by Horace de Carbuccia , Georges Suarez and Joseph Kessel....
, two magazines with anti-Semitic tendencies, perhaps partly to hide the family's Jewish origins and thereby protect their children from growing anti-Semitic persecution.
By 1940, Némirovsky's husband was unable to continue working at the bank after his death from the second world war– and Irène's books could no longer be published – because of their Jewish ancestry. Upon the Nazis' approach to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, they fled with their two daughters to the village of Issy-l'Evêque
Issy-l'Évêque
Issy-l'Évêque is a commune in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne in eastern France.-References:*...
(the Némirovskys initially sent them to live with their nanny's family in Burgundy while staying on in Paris themselves; they had already lost their Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n home and refused to lose their home in France), where Némirovsky was required to wear the Yellow badge
Yellow badge
The yellow badge , also referred to as a Jewish badge, was a cloth patch that Jews were ordered to sew on their outer garments in order to mark them as Jews in public. It is intended to be a badge of shame associated with antisemitism...
.
On 13 July 1942, Irène Némirovsky (then 39) was arrested as a "stateless person of Jewish descent" by French police under the regulations of the German occupation
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
. The Gestapo had contacted the RSHA to clarify the measures to be used against her, Ernst Kaltenbrunner ordered her to be gassed, as he considered her a "degenerate artist of deluded Jewish hegemony". As she was being taken away, she told her daughters, "I am going on a journey now." She was brought to a convoy assembly camp at Pithiviers
Pithiviers
Pithiviers is a commune in the Loiret department in north-central France. It is twinned with Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire, England....
and on 17 July 1942, together with 928 other Jewish deportees, transported to German concentration camp Auschwitz. Upon her arrival there two days later, her forearm was marked with an identification number
Identification in Nazi camps
Identification of inmates in Nazi concentration camps was performed in two ways: by special badges and by identification numbers.-Badges:...
. According to official papers at the time, she died a month later of typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
. Subsequent records revealed that Irène was actually gassed there by the Nazis.
On 6 November 1942 her husband, Michel Epstein, was sent to Auschwitz and immediately put to death in a gas chamber
Gas chamber
A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been used...
.
The rediscovery
Némirovsky is now best known as the author of the unfinished Suite FrançaiseSuite française (Irène Némirovsky)
Suite française is the title of a planned sequence of five novels by Irène Némirovsky, a French writer of Ukrainian Jewish origin. In July 1942, having just completed the first two of the series, Némirovsky was arrested as a Jew and detained at Pithiviers and then Auschwitz, where she allegedly...
(Denoël, France, 2004, ISBN 2207256456; translation by Sandra Smith, Knopf, 2006, ISBN 1400044731), two novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
s portraying life in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
between 4 June 1940 and 1 July 1941, the period during which the Nazis occupied Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. These works are considered remarkable because they were written during the actual period itself, and yet are the product of considered reflection, rather than just a journal of events, as might be expected considering the personal turmoil experienced by the author at the time.
Némirovsky's older daughter, Denise, kept the notebook containing the manuscript for Suite Française for fifty years without reading it, thinking it was a journal or diary of her mother's, which would be too painful to read. In the late 1990s, however, she made arrangements to donate her mother's papers to a French archive and decided to examine the notebook first. Upon discovering what it contained, she instead had it published in France, where it became a bestseller
Bestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...
in 2004. It has since been translated into 38 languages and as of 2008 has sold 2.5 million copies.
The original manuscript has been given to the Institut mémoires de l'édition contemporaine (IMEC), and the novel has won the Prix Renaudot
Prix Renaudot
The Prix Théophraste-Renaudot or Prix Renaudot is a French literary award which was created in 1926 by ten art critics awaiting the results of the deliberation of the jury of the Prix Goncourt....
– the first time the prize has been awarded posthumously.
Némirovsky's surviving notes sketch a general outline of a story arc
Story arc
A story arc is an extended or continuing storyline in episodic storytelling media such as television, comic books, comic strips, boardgames, video games, and in some cases, films. On a television program, for example, the story would unfold over many episodes. In television, the use of the story...
that was intended to include the two existing novellas, as well as three more to take place later during the war and at its end. She wrote that the rest of the work was "in limbo, and what limbo! It's really in the lap of the gods since it depends on what happens."
In a January 2006 interview with the BBC, her daughter, Denise, said, "For me, the greatest joy is knowing that the book is being read. It is an extraordinary feeling to have brought my mother back to life. It shows that the Nazis did not truly succeed in killing her. It is not vengeance, but it is a victory."
Controversy
Several reviewers and commentators have raised questions regarding Némirovsky's attitude toward Jews, her generally negative depiction of Jews in her writing and her use of anti-Semitic publications in advancing her career. A review of her work published in The New Republic states:
Némirovsky was the very definition of a self-hating JewSelf-hating JewSelf-hating Jew is a term used to allege that a Jewish person holds antisemitic beliefs or engages in antisemitic actions. The concept gained widespread currency after Theodor Lessing's 1930 book Der Jüdische Selbsthass ; the term became "something of a key term of opprobrium in and beyond Cold...
. Does that sound too strong? Well, here is a Jewish writer who owed her success in France entre deux guerres in no small measure to her ability to pander to the forces of reaction, to the fascist right. Némirovsky's stories of corrupt Jews – some of them even have hooked noses, no less! – appeared in right-wing periodicals and won her the friendship of her editors, many of whom held positions of power in extreme-right political circles. When the racial laws in 1940 and 1941 cut off her ability to publish, she turned to those connections to seek special favors for herself, and even went so far as to write a personal plea to Marshal Pétain.
Myriam Anissimov's introduction to the French edition of Suite Française describes Némirovsky as a "self-hating Jew", due to the fact that Némirovsky's own situation as a Jew in France is not at all seen in the work. The paragraph was omitted from the English edition.
A long article in The Jewish Quarterly
Jewish Quarterly
Jewish Quarterly is a UK literary and cultural magazine, published 4 times a year. It focuses on issue of Jewish concern, but also has interests in wider culture and politics. It was founded by Jacob Sonntag in 1955 and has published continuously since...
argued that there had been an "abdication of critical responsibility in exchange for the more sensational copy to be had from Némirovsky’s biography" by most reviewers in the British press.
It should be noted that not everyone agrees with these views and anyone reading and discovering for themselves the sensitivity and depth of Nemirovsky's writing may well come to a different conclusion.
Fire in the Blood
In 2007 another novel by Némirovsky was published from surviving manuscripts. Irène gave some of the manuscript to her husband, Michel Epstein; the rest was in the suitcase entrusted to her daughter Denise. The two matched up to form her last work, Fire in the Blood, a tale of country folk in the Burgundy village of Issy L'Eveque, based upon a village where Némirovsky and her family found temporary refuge whilst hiding from the Nazis.Works published during the author's life
- L'Enfant génial (Éditions Fayard, 1927), was renamed by the publisher L'enfant prodige in 1992 with the approval of Némirovsky's daughters, because the French term génial had become a teenager word like awesome and sounded funny.
- David GolderDavid GolderDavid Golder is writer Irène Némirovsky's first novel. It was recently re-issued following the popularity of the newly-discovered masterpiece Suite Française, written by Némirovsky whilst in hiding in France during the Second World War...
(Éditions Grasset, 1929) - Le BalLe BalLe Bal is the title of collection of 2 novellas written by Irène Némirovsky. Published in France in 1930, it has been recently re-issued, due to the increasing interest in and popularity of the author's work, following the discovery and publication of Suite Française.Le Bal is a short novella...
(Éditions Grasset, 1930) - Le malentendu (Éditions Fayard, 1930)
- Les Mouches d'automne (Éditions Grasset, 1931)
- L'Affaire Courilof (Éditions Grasset, 1933)
- Le Pion sur l'échiquier (Éditions Albin MichelÉditions Albin MichelÉditions Albin Michel is a French publisher. It was founded in 1911 by Albin Michel.-External links:*...
, 1934) - Films parlés (Éditions Nouvelle Revue Française, 1934)
- Le Vin de solitude (Éditions Albin Michel, 1935)
- Jézabel (Éditions Albin Michel, 1936) [published in the U.S. as A Modern Jezebel by Henry Holt & Co., 1937]
- La Proie (Éditions Albin Michel, 1938)
- Deux (Éditions Albin Michel, 1939)
- Le maître des âmes (Revue Gringoire, 1939, published as weekly episodes)
- Les Chiens et les loups (Éditions Albin Michel, 1940)
Works published posthumously
- La Vie de Tchekhov (Éditions Albin Michel, 1946)
- Les Biens de ce monde (Éditions Albin Michel, 1947)
- Les Feux de l'automne (Éditions Albin Michel, 1957)
- Dimanche (short stories) (Éditions StockStock (publishing house)Stock is a French publisher, a subsidiary of Hachette Livre, which itself is part of the Lagardère Group.It was founded in the 18th century by André Cailleau, who was succeeded in 1753 by Nicolas-Bonaventure Duchesne, who published Voltaire and Rousseau. At the beginning of the 19th century, the...
, 2000) (English translation published in 2010 by Persephone BooksPersephone BooksPersephone Books is an independent publisher based in Bloomsbury, London. Founded in 1999 by Nicola Beauman, Persephone has a catalogue of 93 "neglected novels, diaries, poetry, short stories, non-fiction, biography and cookery books, mostly by women and mostly dating from the early to...
) - Destinées et autres nouvelles (Éditions Sables, 2004)
- Suite FrançaiseSuite française (Irène Némirovsky)Suite française is the title of a planned sequence of five novels by Irène Némirovsky, a French writer of Ukrainian Jewish origin. In July 1942, having just completed the first two of the series, Némirovsky was arrested as a Jew and detained at Pithiviers and then Auschwitz, where she allegedly...
(Éditions Denoël, 2004) Winner of the Renaudot prizePrix RenaudotThe Prix Théophraste-Renaudot or Prix Renaudot is a French literary award which was created in 1926 by ten art critics awaiting the results of the deliberation of the jury of the Prix Goncourt....
2004. English translation by Sandra Smith published in Great Britain by Chatto & Windus, 2004, and in the U.S. by Alfred A. KnopfAlfred A. KnopfAlfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...
, 2006. - Le maître des âmes (Éditions Denoël, 2005)
- Chaleur du sang (Warmth of Blood) (Editions Denoël, 2007)
Opera adaptations
- Le Bal (2009) - composed by Oscar StrasnoyOscar StrasnoyOscar Strasnoy is a French-Argentine composer, conductor and pianist. Although primarily known for his nine stage works, the first of which Midea premiered in Spoleto in 2000, his principal compositions also include a secular cantata and several song cycles.-Career:Oscar Strasnoy was born in...
, adapted by Matthew Jocelyn, premiered in 2010 at the Hamburg Opera House, Germany.
Biography
A biography about Némirovsky was published in 2006. The book, Irene Nemirovsky: Her Life And Works was written by Jonathan Weiss.See also
- Hélène BerrHélène BerrHélène Berr was a Jewish French woman, who documented her life in a diary during the time of Nazi occupation of France. In France she is considered to be a "French Anne Frank".- Life :...
– a French diarist - Hana BradyHana BradyHana Brady was a 13-year old Jewish girl murdered in the Holocaust. She is the subject of the 2002 non-fiction children's book Hana's Suitcase, written by Karen Levine.-Biography:Hana Brady was born in Nové Mesto, Czechoslovakia on May 16, 1931...
– Jewish girl and holocaust victim; subject of the children's book Hana's Suitcase - Helga DeenHelga DeenHelga Deen was the author of a diary, discovered in 2004, which describes her stay in a Dutch prison camp, Kamp Vught, where she was brought during World War II at the age of 18....
– wrote a diary in Herzogenbusch concentration camp (Camp Vught) - Etty HillesumEtty HillesumEsther "Etty" Hillesum was a young Jewish woman whose letters and diaries, kept between 1941 and 1943 describe life in Amsterdam during the German occupation...
– wrote a diary in Amsterdam and Camp Westerbork - Věra KohnováVera KohnováVěra Kohnová was a Jewish girl from Czechoslovakia. She wrote a diary about her feelings and about events during the Nazi occupation. Her diary was published in 2006....
– a Czech diarist - David KokerDavid KokerThe Jewish student David Koker lived with his family in Amsterdam until he was captured on the night of 11 February 1943 and transported to camp Vught....
– wrote a diary in Herzogenbusch concentration camp (Camp Vught) - Janet LanghartJanet LanghartJanet Langhart Cohen is an American model, television journalist and author. She serves as President and CEO of Langhart Communications and is the spouse of former Defense Secretary William Cohen...
– Writer of one act play "Anne and Emmett" - Rutka LaskierRutka LaskierRutka Laskier was a Jewish teenager from Poland who is best known for her 1943 diary chronicling three months of her life during the Holocaust.-Biography:...
– a Polish diarist - Tanya SavichevaTanya SavichevaTatiana Nikolayevna Savicheva , commonly referred to as Tanya Savicheva was a Soviet child diarist who endured the Siege of Leningrad during World War II.- Early life :...
- Sophie SchollSophie SchollSophia Magdalena Scholl was a German student, active within the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. She was convicted of high treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich with her brother Hans...
– German student executed by the Nazis - Henio ZytomirskiHenio ZytomirskiHenio Zytomirski , was a Polish Jew born in Lublin, Poland and was murdered at the age of 9 in a gas chamber in Majdanek concentration camp, during the Nazi occupation of Poland. Henio became an icon of the Holocaust, not only in Lublin but all over Poland...
– Polish boy who was a holocaust victim
Further reading
- Olivier Philipponnat and Patrick Lienhardt, The Life of Irène Némirovsky: 1903-1942, London, Chatto & Windus, 2010. Translated by Euan Cameron. ISBN 978 0 701 18288 5. Available in U. S. May 4, 2010.
- Jonathan WeissJonathan M. WeissJonathan Weiss is an American scholar of French literature and social science whose extensive publications include literary and theatre criticism, essays on Franco-American relations, a short story, and most recently the biography of Irène Némirovsky.Weiss is currently NEH Class of 1940...
, Irène Némirovsky: Her Life and Works, Stanford: Stanford University PressStanford University PressThe Stanford University Press is the publishing house of Stanford University. In 1892, an independent publishing company was established at the university. The first use of the name "Stanford University Press" in a book's imprinting occurred in 1895...
, 2006. ISBN 978-0-8047-5481-1. - Le Mirador, Mémoires rêvées, Elisabeth Gille, Nemirovsky's youngest daughter, a "dreamed biography" of her mother. Presses de la Renaissance (1992) ISBN 2856166296, Available in English from Knopf in Fall 2006., Paul Gray, New York Times Book Review, April 9, 2006
- "Le Memorial de la Deportation des Juifs de France", Serge Klarsfeld, Paris, 1978. No pagination.
External links
- A Website Dedicated To Irène Némirovsky Site dédié à l'écrivain Irène Némirovsky
- Irene Nemirovsky at Random House Australia Université McGill: le roman selon les romanciers Inventory and analysis of Irene Némirovsky's non-novelistic writings about novel
- http://www.wamu.org/audio/dr/06/06/r2060629-11031.asxInterview of Denise Epstein & Sandra Smith WAMUWAMUWAMU is a public radio station that services the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The station broadcasts on 88.5 FM, online at wamu.org, and on HD Radio at 88.5-HD1, 2 and 3. WAMU is on-air 24 hours a day. It is licensed to American University, and its studios are located near the campus...
American University Radio] - Jewish Literary Review: "Tell the full story of Irène Némirovsky"
Critical reviews of Suite Française
- Peter Kemp in The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
- Andrew Riemer in The Sydney Morning Herald
- A review by: Paul La Farge