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In 1940, as the Germans rolled into Paris, the novelist Irene Nemirovsky fled the city for a small village in Burgundy. There, she began to write a five-part novel charting the fate of the French people under occupation. She never finished it - a Russian Jew by birth, she died in Auschwitz in 1942 - but two parts of the book did survive, along with her daughters.
In 2004 Suite Francaise was published in France to great acclaim. It has been translated into 30 languages and now appears in English (Chatto & Windus, £16.99).
The risk, of course, is that the drama of Nemirovsky's own story, and the excitement of such an archaeological discovery, will overshadow the literary qualities of the work. They should not be allowed to. It's a gem. Suite Francaise is divided into two parts: Storm in June which covers the
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Look beyond the tragic history and see a great book, says tim auld
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evacuation of Paris; and Dolce which examines its aftermath.
Throughout, Nemirovsky's writing is distinguished by the honesty of its vision and by her refusal to allow polemic to cloud her treatment of character. Her focus is domestic and she anatomises the way war pulls apart the fabric of society at its most fundamental level, climaxing with the tender portrayal of a provincial lady's love for a German soldier billeted in her home.
There's also a savage humour at work, worthy of Evelyn Waugh in his darkest moments. Thus we are presented with an old man who bequeaths his millions to the orphans of a charitable institution, unaware that they have just murdered the priest who cares for them - the old man's grandson.
The pity is, the story's unfinished. Then again, what we have is more than enough. 
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POSTED MARCH 21, 2006
More fiction: Ian McGuire
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