When Irène Némirovsky died in Auschwitz in 1942, only months before the death of her husband, Michel Epstein, she left behind two daughters, Denise Epstein and Élisabeth Gille, and the unfinished manuscript for her now-famous novel Suite Française.
Sandra Smith, who translated Suite Française into English, has also translated other books by Némirovsky; the most recent of these to reach the North American market is All Our Worldly Goods, which was originally published in France in 1947. At the outset of the novel, when Pierre Harledot goes against his parents’ wishes, breaking off his engagement to Simone Renaudin in favor of Agnès Florent, he sets in motion a series of events through which the families and offspring become increasingly entwined. In this way, in All Our Worldly Goods, which leaves off after the German occupation of Saint-Elme, Némirovsky provides a fascinating commentary on the personal and social effects of war by exploring the interactions of three families over multiple generations against the backdrop of the First and Second World Wars in France.
