Suite Francaise

by Irene Nemirovsky

(Fiction, 2004)

Considered to be the earliest work of literary fiction about World War II and written during the actual period that it depicts, Suite Francaise is the story of life in France under the Nazi occupation. It includes two parts – “Storm in June," set amid the 1940 exodus from Paris, and "Dolce," set in a German-occupied village. Nemirovsky, a French writer of Russian Jewish origin, was only able to complete two installments of her planned five-part series. She was arrested in July 1942 as a Jew and died in Auschwitz of typhus. Her two daughters, thinking the notebook containing the novel was a journal that would be too painful to read, preserved the volume but did not examine it until 1998. A 2006 New York Times Notable Book. 416 p. * Also available to download as an audio book.