1st Edition

Before Auschwitz Irène Némirovsky and the Cultural Landscape of Inter-war France

By Angela Kershaw Copyright 2010
    242 Pages
    by Routledge

    242 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book analyses Irene Némirovsky’s literary production in its relationship to the literary and cultural context of the inter-war period in France. It examines topics of central importance to our understanding of the literary field in France in the period, such as: the close relationship between politics and literature; the historical, political, cultural and personal legacies of the First World War; the so-called ‘crisis of the novel’ and the attempt to create and develop new narrative forms; the phenomenon of Russian emigration to Paris in the wake of the Russian Revolution and Civil War; the possibilities for the creation of a French-Jewish identity and mode of writing; and the threat of fascism and the approach of the Second World War.

    Acknowledgments Introduction 1: The Making of a Literary Reputation 2: Before David Golder 3: A Russian Soul 4: A Jewish Soul 5: Crisis and Conflict: Constructions of National Identity 6: Conclusions: Second Flowering Notes Bibliography Index

    Biography

    Angela Kershaw is a Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Birmingham. She is the author of Forgotten Engagements: Women, Literature and the Left in 1930s France (Rodopi, 2007).

    "Kershaw's in-depth study allows one to appreciate Némirovsky's exceptional life and work, before Auschwitz. Essential."-- C. B. Kerr, Vassar College, Choice