The Life of Irene Nemirovsky

Praise

“A phenomenally well-sourced, detailed, analytical, and beautifully written biography saturated with Némirovsky’s own bracing candor and penetrating insights . . . Tenacious, shrewd, fearless, alluring, and gifted, she wrote unflinchingly about human failings and transcendence in nine novels and dozens of stories between 1932 and 1942. Philipponnat and Lienhardt chronicle every complex challenge, joy, and betrayal Némirovsky faced, up to her death at Auschwitz, in this propulsive, discerning, and devastating portrait of a brilliant writer in a time of escalating horror.”
—Booklist (starred review)

“Anyone who admired Suite Française will want to read this book, because Némirovsky’s story was so extraordinary, her character so bewitching . . . This biography represents a remarkable feat of research, collating long-lost notes and fragments . . . [Némirovsky] emerges as irresistibly elusive, brilliant personality suffused with melancholy and tragedy even before the death camp beckoned.”
—Max Hastings, The Sunday Times (London)
 
“Informative and serious-minded . . . This book, which strives to tell uncomfortable truths, is an important contribution to understanding a complex, painful but ultimately triumphant story.”
—Anne Chisholm, The Sunday Telegraph (London)
 
“Riveting . . . [A] tremendous biography . . . Beautifully translated by Euan Cameron.”
—Nicholas Shakespeare, The Daily Telegraph (London)