About
Irène Némirovsky was born in Kiev in 1903 into a wealthy Jewish family. After the Bolshevik Revolution, she settled in France in 1919. She studied at the Sorbonne and published her first novel, David Golder, in 1929, which was a great success. She wrote several other novels, including Le Bal and Le Vin de solitude. Converted to Catholicism in 1939, she could no longer publish under the Occupation. Arrested in 1942, she died at Auschwitz. Her manuscript of Suite Française, written just before her death, was published posthumously in 2004 and received the Prix Renaudot.
* 1903-02-24 — † 1942-08-17
Major works
- David Golder (1929)novel
- Le Bal (1930)novel
- Le Vin de solitude (1935)novel
- Suite Française (2004)novel
Key milestones
- 1919Settles in France after fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution.
- 1942Arrested by French gendarmes, deported to Auschwitz, where she dies of typhus.
- 2004Posthumous publication of Suite Française, which receives the Prix Renaudot.
Themes
Exile and identityFamily and generational conflictAntisemitism and persecutionOccupation and warWomen's condition
Sources: id.loc.gov · memorialdelashoah.org · yadvashem.org