Irène Némirovsky — writer (suite française) with roots in the Russian Empire
Irène Némirovsky was a Ukrainian-born French novelist of Jewish origin whose Suite Française — a magnificent two-part novel about France under Nazi occupation — was published posthumously in 2004 from a manuscript her daughters had preserved for 60 years. It became an international bestseller and one of literature's greatest rediscovered works.
Tracing the roots — Kyiv / St. Pete
Born in Kyiv in 1903 to a wealthy Jewish banker Leon Nemirovsky, Irène fled the Bolshevik revolution with her family to Finland and then France, where she became a celebrated novelist. Despite converting to Catholicism and her widespread fame, she was arrested by French police in 1942 and died in Auschwitz at age 39 — her masterpiece unread.
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Kyiv / St. Pete. At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.
A career defined by ambition
"I know they will take me. Let them take me. I will not move."