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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, author of David Golder, Le Bal and other works published in her lifetime or soon after, as well as the posthumous Suite Francaise and Fire in the Blood. In July 1942 she was arrested by the French police and interned in Pithiviers concentration camp, and from there immediately deported to Auschwitz where she died in August 1942.
Irene Nemirovsky is the literary discovery of the decade * Sunday Times * Slender, but engrossing, novel... Nemirovsky's subtle twist and typically jewelled prose presents the glittering enormity of Gladys, an unsympathetic but vividly realised character who dominates this tale in a fascinating portrait of paranoid self-absorption * Financial Times * Nemirovsky's tale of a woman on trial for shooting her young lover rings more contemporary bells than we might think at first -- Lesley McDowell * The Independent on Sunday * Fast-paced and highly dramatic, it offers a fascinating glimpse into an inter-war world of privilege, wealth and Darwinian social combat -- Simon Shaw * New Statesman *
