Dimensions
152 x 233 x 31mm
The first English publication of 'Suite Francaise' - sixty five years after it was written. Already a bestseller in France, it has
captured reader's imaginations, not only for the tragic story of its author, and the circumstances of its rediscovery, but for its brilliantly subtle and compelling portrait of France under occupation.
'Suite Francaise' has all the ingredients of a major bestseller: the story behind its rediscovery is extraordinary; the life of the author is fascinating and moving; but, most importantly, it is a hugely compelling work of literature, elegantly, subtly and simply written, with astounding insight into the moral complexities of the human condition. It comprises two parts of what might have been a four or five-part work had Irene not been taken to Auschwitz. She conceived of it as a symphony - or her 'War and Peace'. In the first part, 'Storm in June', she tells of the exodus from Paris on the eve of the Nazi invasion. Bourgeois and working-class characters alike pack up their belongings and flee, forced to rub shoulders in traffic-jams on the crowded roads south, some behaving with dignity, others with nauseating selfishness. In Part Two, 'Dolce', we meet several of them again in a small French village where Nazi soldiers are billeted, and watch Lucille's story unfold as she tries to resist the attractions of a sensitive German officer, and takes the risk of defending a young farmer who joins the resistance. The intertwining stories of all these utterly engaging and vivid characters combine to produce a unique portrait of France at that time, and of the subtle calibrations that exist between collaboration and resistance.
