Suite française

Written in the heat of history, Suite française offers an almost real-time portrayal of the June 1940 Exodus, which threw French families from all walks of life—from the most affluent to the most humble—into tragic disarray. With remarkable skill, Irène Némirovsky captures the countless small acts of cowardice and the fragile bursts of solidarity among a population in full retreat. Mistresses abandoned by their lovers, upper-class citizens disgusted by the common people, and wounded soldiers left behind in overcrowded farms clog the roads of France, randomly bombed... Gradually, the enemy takes hold of an inert and frightened country. Like so many others, the village of Bussy is forced to host German troops. Heightened by the presence of the occupiers, social tensions and residents' frustrations resurface... A moving, intimate, and unflinching novel, Suite française reveals with extraordinary clarity the soul of every French person during the Occupation (enhanced with notes and Irène Némirovsky's correspondence), brilliantly and intuitively bringing a raw chapter of our collective memory back to life.