Irène Némirovsky's own life was as dramatic as any fiction. Few writers enjoy posthumous success as astonishing as hers after the international triumph of Suite Française. She was born in 1903 in Kiev to a well-off Jewish family. They fled the Russian revolution, eventually settling in France where, with the publication of David Golder in 1929 - delivered to a publisher just before the birth of her first daughter - Irène swiftly became an acclaimed and successful writer. ...

In January 1943, 230 women of the French Resistance were sent to the death camps by the Nazis who had invaded and occupied their country. This is their story, told in full for the first time—a searing and unforgettable chronicle of terror, courage, defiance, survival, and the power of friendship. Caroline Moorehead, a distinguished biographer, human rights journalist, and the author of Dancing to the Precipice and Human Cargo, brings to life an extraordinary story that readers of Mitchell ...

During the occupation of France in WWII the villages around Le Chambon-sur-Lignon pulled off an astonishing and largely unknown feat. Risking everything, they underwent a long-running battle of nerves and daring to hide 5,000 men, women and children, 3,500 of them Jews, from the Nazis and their Vichy stooges. Despite the danger, a whole community rallied together, from the pacifist pastor who defied orders to the glamorous female agent with a wooden leg, from the 18-year-old master forger ...

'Agnès Humbert bears devastating witness to her time ... An insider's account of the germination of the French Resistance' William Boyd'Sober and testifying, sardonic and humorous ... A beautiful and powerful work of literature' The TimesIn the summer of 1940, as the German Occupation tightened its grip on Paris, Agnès Humbert helped to establish one of the first resistance cells. She had no experience in warfare: she was an art hi...

Stefan Zweig's memoir The World of Yesterday, (Die Welt von Gestern) is a unique love letter to the lost world of pre-war Europe The famous autobiography is published by Pushkin Press, with a cover designed by David Pearson and Clare Skeats. Translated by the award-winning Anthea Bell. Stefan Zweig's memoir, The World of Yesterday recalls the golden age of pre-war Europe its seeming permanence, its promise and its devastating fall. Through the story of his life, and his relationships with ...

“Le Chambon has long been mythologized in France for the actions of its inhabitants. . . . But, as this riveting history shows, the story is more complex. . . . If the picture Moorhead paints is messier than the myth, this only serves to enhance the heroism of the main actors.”— The New YorkerFrom the author of the New York Times bestseller A Train in Winter comes the absorbing story of a French village that helped save thousands hunted by the Gestapo during World War II—told in fu...

Post liberation Paris – an epoch charged with political and conflicting emotions. Liberation was greeted with joy but marked by recriminations and the trauma of purges. The feverish intellectual arguments of the young took place amidst the mundane reality of hunger and fuel shortages. This is a stunning historical account of one of the most stimulating periods in twentieth century French history.

At the beginning of the Second World War, Koestler was living in the south of France working on Darkness at Noon. After retreating to Paris he was imprisoned by the French as an undesirable alien even though he had been a respected crusader against fascism. Only luck and his passionate energy allowed him to escape the fate of many of the innocent refugees, who were handed over to the Nazis for torture and often execution. Scum of the Earth is more than the story of Koestler's survival. His...

The international bestseller: a cry of witness to the 20 th century - the unforgettable memoir of 70 years of contemporary and personal history from the great French filmmaker, journalist and intellectual Claude Lanzmann.'The guillotine - and capital punishment and other diverse methods of dispensing death more generally - have been the abiding obsessions of my life. It began very early. I must have been no more than ten years...

The story of the French Resistance is central to French identity, but it is a story built on myths. 'La Résistance française' was not simply a national effort to free the country from German occupation, but a wider struggle, filled with conflicts and division. It included Spanish republicans, Italian and even German anti-Nazis. The defence against the Holocaust brought in Jewish resisters and Christian rescuers. It involved a civil war for the French Empire in Africa and the Near East. The...

__________________________A FASCINATING BIOGRAPHY OF SINGING LEGEND EDITH PIAF__________________________'This engaging life of the diminutive French singer makes you appreciate anew what a magician she was' - Sunday Times'Fascinating ... Burke vividly depicts the rollercoaster of Piaf's life' - Mail on Sunday'Concise and compelling ... poised...

A completely new edition of the definitive biography of Chopin, unavailable for many years, by one of the finest of contemporary European historians.Two centuries have passed since Chopin’s birth, yet his legacy is all around us today. The quiet revolution he wrought influenced the development of Western music profoundly, and he is still probably the most widely studied and revered composer. For many, he is the object of a cult. Yet most people know little of his life, of the man, ...