Suite Francaise: A Novel...Author: Irène and similar items

Format: Hardcover; ISBN: 1400044731; Publisher: Knopf; Release Date: May 2006; List Price: $25.00; Length: 395 pages; Other: 7th printing. Condition: Like New. Dust jacket, cover, binding, and deckle-edge pages are all practically perfect. Same cover design as that shown here. Synopsis: By the early l940s, when Ukrainian-born Irene Nemirovsky began working on what would become Suite Francaise--the first two parts of a planned five-part novel--she was already a highly successful writer living in Paris. But she was also a Jew, and in 1942 she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz: a month later she was dead at the age of thirty-nine. Two years earlier, living in a small village in central France where she, her husband, and their two small daughters had fled in a vain attempt to elude the Nazis, she'd begun her novel, a luminous portrayal of a human drama in which she herself would become a victim. When she was arrested, she had completed two parts of the epic, the handwritten manuscripts of which were hidden in a suitcase that her daughters would take with them into hiding and eventually into freedom. Sixty-four years later, at long last, we can read Nemirovsky's literary masterpiece. The first part, "A Storm in June", opens in the chaos of the massive 1940 exodus from Paris on the eve of the Nazi invasion, during which several families and individuals are thrown together under circumstances beyond their control. They share nothing but the harsh demands of survival--some trying to maintain lives of privilege, others struggling simply to preserve their lives--but soon, all together, they will be forced to face the awful exigencies of physical and emotional displacement, and the annihilation of the world they know. In the second part, "Dolce", we enter the increasingly complex life of a German-occupied provincial village. Coexisting uneasily with the soldiers billeted among them, the villagers--from aristocrats to shopkeepers to peasants--cope as best they can. Some choose resistance, others collaboration, and as their community is transformed by these acts, the lives of these men and women reveal nothing less than the very essence of humanity. Suite Francaise is a singularly piercing evocation at once subtle and severe, deeply compassionate and fiercely ironic of life and death in occupied France...and a brilliant, profoundly moving work of art. Priority Mail delivery for this item costs $8.00 at the request of a buyer. Otherwise, the shipping rate given here applies to orders shipped via Media Mail within the U.S. only. Orders consisting of multiple purchases packaged together ship by any of these delivery methods at a discounted rate, usually for only $1.00 per additional item plus the shipping fee for the first item (determined to be the one with the highest delivery charge). International buyers: please contact us with your destination country for applicable base shipping rates. Multiple purchases that are packaged together save shipping costs for you, too! Payment is expected within two weeks of placing your order for the first item within a shipment. Paypal is preferred, but money orders and checks (either personal or cashier's) are also accepted. Orders typically ship within 48 hours of PROCESSED payment, excluding weekends and holidays. Inquiries from all shoppers are responded to promptly and courteously. Buyers are encouraged to ask questions prior to placing orders, as all sales are final unless the product you receive differs significantly from that which was advertised here in terms of either the product itself or its promised condition. In other words, "buyer's remorse" does not qualify for a refund. Exceptions are made only in the event that a buyer is willing to return at his or her own expense an unopened, BRAND NEW item for a refund of the original purchase price only. No original shipping costs will be refunded, unless we are at fault for sending you the wrong item or misrepresenting the product and/or its condition. This hasn?t happened yet, but if it does: you are guaranteed a refund of the purchase price, the original shipping fee, PLUS the cost to ship the item back to us. Thank you for looking!