David Golder, the Ball, Snow In Autumn, the Courilof Affair

Irène Némirovsky was born in Kiev in 1903 into a wealthy banking family and emigrated to France during the Russian Revolution. After attending the Sorbonne in Paris she began to write and swiftly achieved success with DAVID GOLDER, which was followed by more than a dozen other books. Throughout her lifetime she published widely in French newspapers and literary journals. She died in Auschwitz in 1942. More than sixty years later, Suite Française, was published posthumously, for the first time, in 2006.Claire Messud is the award-winning author of four works of fiction: When the World Was Steady, The Hunters, The Last Life, and, most recently, The Emperor’s Children.