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Product Description
Readers everywhere were introduced to the work of Irene Nemirovsky through the publication of her long-lost masterpiece, "Suite Francaise". But "Suite Francaise" was only a coda to the brief yet remarkably prolific career of this nearly forgotten, yet hugely talented novelist, who fled Russia for Paris after the Revolution and died at Auschwitz at the age of 39. Here in one volume are four of Nemirovsky's other novels - all of them newly translated by the award-winning Sandra Smith, and all, except "David Golder", available in English for the first time."David Golder" is the book that established Nemirovsky's reputation in France in 1929 when she was twenty-six. It is a novel about greed and loneliness, the story of an ageing Russian Jewish businessman, an exile in France, learning to confront death and the knowledge that wealth has not brought him happiness. "The Ball" is both a sensitive exploration of adolescence and a merciless exposure of bourgeois social pretension. "Snow in Autumn" is an evocative tale of White Russian emigres in Paris, while in "The Courilof Affair" a retired Russian revolutionary recalls an infamous assassination committed in his youth. This volume is introduced by novelist Claire Messud.
Amazon.com Review
In 2006 English readers worldwide were introduced to Irène Némirovsky's rediscovered masterpiece, Suite Française, which topped just about every "best of" list that year, including our own. Thanks to the editors of the Everyman's Library 20th-Century Classics series, a second wave of the prolific author's writing has just hit our shores. In a single volume, readers can find four of Nemirovsky's gem-like early novellas--David Golder, The Ball, Snow in Autumn, and The Courilof Affair--with all the trimmings: a shrewd introduction by Claire Messud (The Emperor's Children) and a detailed chronology of the author's life and times. These first novellas demonstrate Némirovsky's genius for exposing an individual's virtues and flaws, much like a jeweler examining a diamond under a loupe. Potentially one-dimensional characters such as a greedy businessman or a spiteful teenager emerge from these stories as multi-faceted figures whose questionable beliefs and actions compel us to re-examine our own. Don't miss these short, but potent tales. --Lauren Nemroff
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