The Wine of Solitude

Description

From the author of Suite Fran aise comes a powerful novel of family, war and the end of innocence From the author of the bestselling Suite Fran aise. Hel ne is a troubled young girl. Neglected by her self-absorbed mother and her adored but distant father, she longs for love and for freedom. As first the Great War and then the Russian Revolution rage in the background, she grows from a lonely, melancholy child to an angry young woman intent on destruction. The Wine of Solitude is a powerful tale of an unhappy family in difficult times and a woman prepared to wreak a shattering revenge.

Ir ne Nemirovksy 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, The Courilof Affair, All Our Worldly Goods and other works published in her lifetime or soon after, as well as the posthumously published Suite Fran aise and Fire in the Blood. The Wine of Solitude (Le Vin de Solitude) was first published in France in 1935. Nemirovksy died in Auschwitz in 1942. Sandra Smith is a fellow of Robinson College, Cambridge, and has translated all the novels of Ir ne Nemirovksy available in English. 'Sandra Smith's translations are of the highest quality.' J.M. Coetzee, New York Review of Books

A wonderfully atmospheric novel...captivating and searingly honest... A brilliant coming of age novel -- Helen Dunmore * Guardian, Books of the Year * Haunting...profound...exquisitely wrought * Independent on Sunday * The tangle of this unhappy family is beautifully and ruthlessly analysed... The relationship between mother and daughter is described with uncompromising lucidity... Nemirovsky evokes the places of her childhood with a sensuous clarity * Guardian * The Wine of Solitude is an end-of-innocence story... It is Nemirovsky's powers of social observation...the implacable eye for the nuances of human conduct, that make The Wine of Solitude so memorable * Financial Times * Beautifully written... Her ability to evoke the feeling of time and especially place is remarkable * Scotsman *