In France, a book whose author was killed at Auschwitz “has taken the world of publishing by storm,” and is such a hit that “a vigorous campaign is underway” for the author “to be posthumously awarded France’s most prestigious literary prize, the Goncourt.” A story in The Guardian by Jon Henley reports that “Suite Francaise, the first two parts of what Irene Nemirovsky originally intended to be a five-volume epic, has been hailed by ecstatic French critics as ‘a masterpiece’ and ‘probably the definitive novel of our nation in the second world war’.” Why is the book only appearing now? Because Nemirovsky’s daughter, Denise Nemirovsky, unlike her mother, escaped the Nazis, and got away with little other than “the thick leather binder that had never left her mother’s side.” She explains, “I did not know what it was, but I knew it was precious to mother.” Reports Henley, “It was not until April this year that Denise was finally confident that she would not be betraying her mother by having the work published.” “I had always rejected her victimisation, disliked the fact that what remained of her was emotion at her fate,” she says. “What pleases me, after all this time, is that that is now outweighed by emotion at her talent.”