The Life and Work of Irene Nemirovsky

In recent years, the work of writer Irene Nemirovsky has seen an impressive revival. Beginning with the publication of her unfinished masterpiece Suite Francaise in 2004 and its translation from French into English in 2006, much of her work has since been re-published in some 30 different languages and extensively commented on. She achieved a considerable level of fame during her lifetime, particularly with the bestseller David Golder which was first published in 1929, yet it is only now in the early years of the twenty-first century that her work is gaining acclaim beyond the French-speaking world.Born in Kiev in 1903, Irene was the daughter of a successful Jewish banker. She and her family escaped to France via Finland after the Russian Revolution. There they put down roots and assimilated into French life with some ease. Irene's relationship with her neurotic mother was difficult, but this did not prevent her from achieving literary success with books such as David Golder,
Le Bal and All Our Worldly Goods. She did not feel it necessary to apply for French citizenship until 1935, an application which was denied.Her work has inspired controversy, both during her lifetime and now. Her books, particularly David Golder, have been accused of being anti-Semitic. Nemirovsky was certainly alienated from her Jewish roots but, as the 1930s went on, her actions (such as converting to Catholicism in 1939) may well be explained by an attempt to protect herself and her family from an increasingly hostile society. We will never know. If that was the case, it did not help her, as she found herself deserted by those who had previously admired her work.Irene, her husband Michel Epstein and their two young daughters Denise and Elisabeth, moved to the village of Issy-l'Eveque in 1940, just before the German invasion. It was there that she wrote most of Suite Francaise, her epic account of France under the German occupation, and began work on the novella Fire in t
he Blood, although she was no longer able to publish.It was her lack of French citizenship that ultimately sealed her fate. As a stateless Jew she was particularly vulnerable, and in July 1942, she was arrested and sent to Pithiviers camp, from where she was deported almost immediately to Auschwitz, where she died the following month. Her daughters escaped, along with a suitcase full of her manuscripts.It took many years before Denise Epstein, Nemirovsky's elder daughter, could bring herself to read the manuscripts properly. It was only then that Suite Francaise was unveiled and hailed as a masterpiece.

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