"...with the acclaim that accompanied the posthumous publication of Suite Francaise....the question almost sizzles: Was Nemirovsky--could she have been--an anti-Semitic writer? And, whether yes or no, what exactly was her relationship to her Jewish, as well as her Russian and adopted French, heritage? These questions are central to Irene Nemirovsky: Her Life and Works, a brief but intensely thought-provoking biography by Jonathan Weiss, a professor of humanities and French at Colby College." --San Francisco Chronicle
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 frequented 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. But 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.

"...with the acclaim that accompanied the posthumous publication of Suite Francaise....the question almost sizzles: Was Nemirovsky--could she have been--an anti-Semitic writer? And, whether yes or no, what exactly was her relationship to her Jewish, as well as her Russian and adopted French, heritage? These questions are central to Irene Nemirovsky: Her Life and Works, a brief but intensely thought-provoking biography by Jonathan Weiss, a professor of humanities and French at Colby College." --San Francisco Chronicle
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 frequented 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. But 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.