Lecture by Dominique Missika
: Irène Némirovsky, an Unfinished Life
Dominique Missika, publisher and historian
A young Jewish novelist of Russian origin, driven from her homeland by the 1917 revolution, Irène Némirovsky (1903–1942) settled in France and began studying literature at the Sorbonne. During the 1920s, she published short stories and three novels, but it was the publication of *David Golder* in 1929 that launched her career. In 1940, she fled Paris with her family. Taking refuge in Issy-l’Évêque (Saône-et-Loire), she began writing the novel Suite Française, which depicts the exodus and then life under the Occupation. Arrested in 1942, a few months before her husband Michel Epstein, she was deported to Auschwitz, from which she never returned. Their daughters, Denise and Élisabeth, survived by hiding throughout the war. In a suitcase, they carried their mother’s precious manuscript. In 2004, thanks to them, the writer’s final novel was published and received the Renaudot Prize. To discuss this journey, which opens the temporary exhibition Suitcases! Stories of an Object in War, we are pleased to welcome historian Dominique Missika.
Her latest book recounts the epic story of Irène Némirovsky and restores a face and a voice to this fascinating woman.
Courbet Hall, accessible via 2 or 6 Rue Mégevand, Besançon
Reservations required
As part of its annual lecture series, the Museum of the Resistance and Deportation invites you to join us oneThursday a monthfor a new lecture and a new guest speaker.