Olivier Corpet (EDT), Garrett White (EDT) Woman of Letters

Annotation

Produced with the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York, and IMEC, the French foundation that holds the Nemirovsky archive, Woman of Letters explores the life of Irene Nemirovsky, author of the million-selling novel Suite Francaise. Born in Kiev in 1903, Nemirovsky immigrated to France during the Russian Revolution. A celebrated Parisian writer between the wars, she died in Auschwitz in 1942. Compiled with Nemirovsky’s daughter, Denise Epstein, Woman of Letters includes reproductions of more than one hundred photographs, letters, and documents from the family archive. The preface by Museum of Jewish Heritage Director David Marwell and Olivier Corpet addresses the current controversy surrounding accusations that Nemirovsky, though Jewish, wrote earlier works that could be considered anti-Semitic. Woman of Letters includes a translation, by Sandra Smith, of the last short story published in the author’s lifetime, along with notes for Captivity, the unfinished third volume of Suite Francaise. The book will accompany a traveling exhibition, on view at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York through 2008.