Irène Némirovsky – All Our Worldly Goods

Book Bag“As with all Nemirovsky's work there's acute social observation and wit...” In just a few words she can paint a shrewd portrait of a character or a situation with no further elaboration needed – or given...

Scotsman“Not yet reviewed”

Publishers Weekly“Not yet reviewed”

The New Yorker“Not yet reviewed”

The New York Times“Not yet reviewed”

Financial Times“An exquisite balance of weight and lightness...” In execution it is brisk yet lingering, a series of artfully arranged portraits of bourgeois family life in Saint-Elme, a small town in Normandy...

The Times“A living history of the occupation...” Monstrous indifference, Némirovsky slyly suggests, is as French as a fresh baguette; keeping yourself to yourself an incomparable virtue. Right from the first page you can tell that here is a world where keeping up appearances is important...

The Independent“A quietly experimental work...” Avoiding excessive emotion or expository sequences, Némirovsky is nevertheless adept at borrowing the tropes of the popular novel – anecdotal narrative, coincidence, historical intrusion as deus ex machina...

Guardian“A coolly crafted traditional family novel...” Her eye for detail derives from the Russian as much as from the French bourgeois fictional world of Flaubert and Maupassant. She treats her world, in this novel, with a steely gentleness, and always at a certain distance...

The Telegraph“Modest in scale but epic in scope...” Némirovsky shares the fascination of the great 19th-century French novelists with family relationships and money, but she brings to the formula a particular preoccupation of her own: the behaviour of people, individually and collectively...