A World War II novel hidden from the Nazis is being published in English.
After her mother, Irene Nemirovsky, was arrested in 1942 and taken to a concentration camp, Denise Epstein, then 13, carried her mother’s novel in a suitcase as she hid from the Germans in basements and schools, Reuters reported.
Nemirovsky died in a concentration camp, and “Suite Francaise” remained untouched until it was published in France in 2004 to great acclaim. Le Monde called the book, which tells the story of families escaping Paris, “a masterpiece ripped from oblivion.”
In Nemirovsky’s last letters to her editor, Epstein said, she wrote, “I am so tired. I am working so hard and yet I know that my works will be posthumous.”
Knopf will publish the book next month in the United States.