The Modern Novel

Biography

Irène Némirovsky was born in Kiev in 1903. Her father was a rich and successful banker. She was brought up by a French governess in St.Petersburg. The family fled Russia after the Revolution and lived first in Sweden and Finland before moving to France. Némirovsky attended the Sorbonne and started writing. She married and had two daughters but continued writing and had considerable success with her novels. She converted to Catholicism in 1939 but she and her husband had to wear the Jewish yellow star. He was no longer allowed to work in his bank and her novels were no longer published. After the Nazi invasion, they fled to a small village in Vichy but were arrested by the Vichy government and eventually sent to Auschwitz where both were murdered by the Nazis. Their daughters managed to escape, Denise taking what she thought was a diary. It turned out to be an unfinished novel, published in 2004 as Suite française (Suite française). Publication of this work re-established her mother’s reputation and several other posthumous works were published. Irène Némirovsky is now recognised as a major writer. Though she appears here, on the French pages, she never actually became a French national. However, as she lived most of her adult life in France, wrote in French and is considered French. she is here.

Books about Irène Némirovsky

Jonathan Weiss: Irene Nemirovsky: Her Life And Works
Olivier Philipponnat & Patrick Lienhardt: La vie d’Irène Némirovsky (in French)

Other sites

Irène Némirovsky
Irène Némirovsky
Irène Némirovsky et Suite Française
Élisabeth Gille’s Devastating Account of her Mother, Irène Némirovsky
Holocaust Victim’s Lost Novels Help Daughter Heal
Growing Up With Irène Némirovsky
Irène Némirovsky (in French)
Irène Némirovsky (in French)
Irène Némirovsky (in French)
Irène Némirovsky: Tragédie et Noblesse (in French)