Our friends, the French

Today's UK Guardian describes how a newly discovered novel written by a Russian jewish emigré in France during WWII, shortly before she was arrested by the Vichy police and sent to Auschwitz and her death, has become a literary sensation in France:

Sixty-two years after its author died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, a remarkable and previously unpublished wartime work by an emigré Russian Jew in France has taken the world of publishing by storm.

Suite francaise, the first two parts of what Irène Némirovsky 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".

Rights to the work, published three weeks ago, have already been sold in 18 countries, including Britain and the US, often for sums higher than any previously paid for a French novel, and a vigorous campaign is underway for Némirovsky to be posthumously awarded France's most prestigious literary prize, the Goncourt.

I can't wait to read the english translation.