Fire in the Blood was probably written during the two years Irène Némirovsky lived with her family in Issy-l’Evêque, a small village in southern Burgundy, before her deportation to Auschwitz in July 1942 and subsequent death from typhoid. Like Suite Française (winner of France’s prestigious Prix Renaudot in 2004), the manuscript for the novel – thirty densely written pages – was among the papers salvaged by Némirovsky’s young daughters when they fled the village after their father, too, was deported to Auschwitz. The novel, ably translated by Sandra Smith, is published in English for the first time this month.

Literary Review

Oct 2007

Categories

Pamela Norris

Love Rectangle

Who Is Sylvia?

Double Life After Double Life

Seizing the Moment

She Longed for Security and Affection

Reading between the Lines

A Rodin of One’s Own

A Terrible Warning to Keep Clear of Cornwall

Women Can Do It, Too

On the Brink

Rooms with a View

Camera Obscura

The Snowman’s Tale

The Art of Diction

A Writer’s Refuge

Chaining The Soul

Mother Swapping

Sex and Cars

Writers’ War

Sister Act

A Short Story

‘A Baton In The Dark’

Off The Radar

Dearly Beloveds

‘Always Travel Heavy’