Willow Glen Books -- Women's Book Club (public event)

All women are welcome to attend Willow Glen Books' Women's Book Club, held on the fourth Monday of every month. This evening, we'll be discussing Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky.

Irène Némirovsky was a Jewish, Russian immigrant from a wealthy family who had fled the Bolsheviks. She spent her adult life in France, wrote in French, but preserved the detachment and cool distance of the outsider. She and her husband were deported to Auschwitz in 1942, where she died at the age of 39. Her manuscript, in minuscule and barely legible handwriting, was preserved by her daughters, who, ignorant of the fact that these notebooks contained a full-fledged masterpiece, left them unread for 60 years.

Némirovsky's plan for Suite Francaise consisted of five parts. She completed only the first two before she was murdered. The first, "Storm in June," depicts the initial exodus from Paris, when the roads were clogged with refugees of all classes. The second part, "Dolce," covers the occupation by the Germans of a small village, from the so-called armistice in June 1940 to the Soviet Union's entry into the war a year later.

Willow Glen Books [View Map]
1330 Lincoln Avenue, San Jose
408-298-8141

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posted by WGBA on 5/15/08