The Courilof Affair

Irène Némirovsky, Sandra Smith

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English

Vintage
01 December 2008

Fiction & Literature; Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

A masterpiece of early 20th-century literature.

From the author of the bestselling Suite Fran aise.

In 1903 Leon M - the son of two Russian revolutionaries - is given the responsibility of 'liquidating' Valerian Alexandrovitch Courilof, the notoriously brutal and cold-blooded Russian Minister of Education, by the Revolutionary Committee. The assassination, he is told, must take place in public and be carried out in the most grandiose manner possible in order to strike the imagination of the people.

Posing as his newly appointed personal physician, Leon M takes up residence with Courilof in his summer house in the Iles and awaits instructions. But over the course of his stay he is made privy to the inner world of the man he must kill - his failing health, his troubled domestic situation and, most importantly, the tyrannical grip that the Czar himself holds over all his Ministers, forcing them to obey him or suffer the most deadly punishments.

Set during a period of radical upheaval in European history, The Courliof Affair is an unsparing observation of human motives and the abuses of power, an elegy to a lost world and an unflinchingly topical cautionary tale.

By: Irène Némirovsky
Translated by: Sandra Smith
Imprint: Vintage
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 12mm
Weight: 128g
ISBN: 9780099493983
ISBN 10: 0099493985
Pages: 176
Publication Date: 01 December 2008
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Irene Nemirovsky was born in Kiev in 1903, the daughter of a successful Jewish banker. In 1918 her family fled the Russian Revolution for France where she became a bestselling novelist . She was prevented from publishing when the Germans occupied France and moved with her husband and two small daughters from Paris to the safety of the small village of Issy-l'Eveque (in German occupied territory). It was here that Irene began writing Suite Francaise. She died in Auschwitz in 1942

Reviews for The Courilof Affair

Nemirovsky not only unravels the machinations of a revolutionary mind, but rewrites historical events - the novel is based on a real assassination. Like Sartre and Camus, Nemirovsky paints a fictional picture that resonates deep in the contemporary mind, ensuring that terrorism is something more than just a moral and philosophical question * Guardian * Irene Nemirovsky is a novelist of the very first order * Evening Standard *