Writer Irene Nemyrowsky: a talent cut short by a global tragedy

Irene Nemirovsky (Irina Nemirovskaya) was a French writer of Ukrainian Jewish descent. Her life turned out to be tragic, as the events of the Second World War were catastrophic.

Childhood

Iryna was born in Kyiv on 24 February 1903. Her family was quite wealthy. Lev (Arie) Borysovych Nemyrovsky, the writer’s father, was one of the most famous bankers of the Russian Empire of that time, associated with the emperor’s entourage.

Anna Margulis, her mother, was a housewife. The woman was called Fanny in the French manner. The woman did not have a good relationship with her daughter. Irene later depicted her relationship with her mother in the plots of some of her works. Fanny was demanding of Irene, as she demanded that she speak French with her.

Education

Irene was a good student, but she was home-schooled. She knew several foreign languages. The girl read a lot, which allowed her to acquire various knowledge.

In the summer, the future writer spent her holidays with her mother in the resorts of the French Riviera.

In 1914, the Nemirovsky family moved to St. Petersburg, and three years later, to Moscow. Irina’s father lost his bank after the October Revolution. In December 1918, the family had to flee to Finland because of the Bolshevik terror. They disguised themselves in peasant clothes to avoid being caught.

During this period, Irene still tried not to give up writing. She wrote her first prose poems, imitating Oscar Wilde. Later, the family ended up in Sweden.

Creativity

In July 1919, Iryna Nemyrovska and her family arrived in France. In the early 1920s, she studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. The writer published her first ‘Funny Fairy Tales’ in the illustrated fortnightly Fantasio.

The novel David Golder brought her fame. It was published in 1929. The future classic of French cinema, Julien Duvivier, filmed it in 1931.
In 1935, the novel The Wine of Loneliness was published. The events of this book take place in Kyiv.

 

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In 1940, Irene Nemyrowska wrote the novel Dogs and Wolves. The circulation of her works far exceeded that of Colette and Natalie Sarrot.

Her tax return shows that thanks to her writing, Irene earned four times more than her husband, who was the head of the international relations department and a translator at the Parisian Northern Bank.

The Second World War

On the eve of the Great War, due to the spread of fascism, Irene Nemyrowska had to convert to Catholicism. However, because of her Jewish background, her works were no longer published.

The Vichy government in France passed a law declaring all Jews to be enemies and depriving them of their rights. The Nemirovsky’s left the French capital and decided to settle in the small village of Issy-l’Evêque, located in Burgundy.

In July 1942, tragic events began to unfold in the Nemirovsky’s life. The police came to their house, and later Irene was taken to a transit filtration camp in Pitivier, and six days later she was transported by train to Auschwitz. In the concentration camp, she contracted typhus and was sent to Birkenau, a joint death camp with Auschwitz, where a gas plant was installed by the Nazis. On 17 August 1942, Irene Nemyrowski was added to the list of the dead of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

Posthumous publications

After Irene’s death, the Nymirowskis published some of her works.

In 1946, she published a biography, The Life of Chekhov (Albin Michel), and in 1947, The Riches of This World and Autumn Lights (both by Albin Michel).

In 2004, 62 years after her death, Irene published her last, unfinished novel, The French Suite, a story about the tragedy of the Nazi occupation of France.