Fire in the Blood

Irène Némirovksy was born in Kiev in 1903, the daughter of a successful Jewish banker. In 1918 her family fled the Russian Revolution for France where she became a bestselling novelist, author of David Golder, Le Bal and other works published in her lifetime, as well as the posthumous Suite Française. Prevented from publishing when the Germans occupied France in 1940, she stayed with her husband and two small daughters in the small village of Issy-l'Evèque (in German occupied territory) where she had moved from Paris just before the invasion. In July 1942 she was arrested by the French police and interned in Pithiviers concentration camp, and from there immediately deported to Auschwitz where she died in August 1942. The first French publication of Fire in the Blood, by the publishers who discovered and published Suite Française, was in March 2007.

"Another masterpiece" Sunday Times "Mesmerising...another gem from a glittering career cut tragically short" Daily Express "A literary find of the same quality as Suite Francaise...it has a universal resonance by exhibiting not only what people do to each other but what the passing of time does to us all" -- Peter Kemp Sunday Times "Magnificently atmospheric... She is so clever, quick and observant, that every character in the story bounds into life" -- Carmen Callil Financial Times "Gripping and full of interest...it confirms Nemirovsky's brilliance as a storyteller with a deep understanding of the hidden flaws and cruelties in the human heart" Sunday Telegraph