I became intrigued by the German occupation of Paris when I moved here in 1993. I began to imagine how the French citizens would have lived alongside the enemy; housing them, serving them, working for them, feeding them, and even entertaining them, while hiding what was really in their hearts. This duplicity fascinated me, and I read all the books I could on the subject. Living in Paris, I also had the opportunity to talk to French people who had lived through the occupation. Putting all the pieces together, I did my best to recreate the atmosphere in my two novels.
This book is about passive resistance to the Nazi occupation; about taking a stand and not talking to the enemy, using silence as a weapon, not letting the invader feel comfortable. There is no action, no fights, no gore, no espionage. A family is obliged to live with a Nazi and endure his presence, but behind the enemy uniform, there is an individual, a human being. I found it touching and beautiful that in the midst of the German invasion of his country, Vercors could write about the enemy in such a tender and tolerant way. This is the book that inspired me to write my second novel about a German in Paris during the occupation.
This first bilingual edition of France's most enduring wartime novel introduces Vercors's famous tale to a generation without personal experience of World War II who may not be able to read it in its original language. Now available in paperback, readers are assisted with a historical and literary introduction, explanatory notes, a glossary of French terms and a select bibliography.
This book immediately took me to Paris during the occupation, an atmosphere I was looking to recreate for my own novel. The mess of defeat, hypocrisy, cowardice, courage, and compromise is brilliantly portrayed, but there is also hope and love, and this is what made it stand out as a tender, human story. Though a work of fiction, it was written by a Jewish woman who was arrested and murdered by the Nazis in 1942.
In 1941, Irene Nemirovsky sat down to write a book that would convey the magnitude of what she was living through, not in terms of battles and politicians, but by evoking the domestic lives and personal trials of the ordinary citizens of France. She did not live to see her ambition fulfilled, or to know that sixty-five years later, "Suite Francaise" would be published for the first time, and hailed as a masterpiece. Set during a year that begins with France's fall to the Nazis in June 1940 and ends with Germany turning its attention to Russia, "Suite Francaise" falls…
This is the diary of a 21-year-old Jewish woman living in Paris during the German Occupation. A student at the Sorbonne, we follow her as she writes a first-hand account of the ever-increasing hardships and terrors her and her family face. She writes candidly about her experiences, her thoughts and beliefs as she and her family go about their daily routines, while living in constant fear of being arrested. It is a touching, personal testimony about Paris during World War II. She was arrested on the one night her family decided to sleep in their own home. Tragically, she died only days before her camp was liberated by the British. Some poignant details in her diary stayed with me long after I finished reading, and I used some of them in my novel.
Not since The Diary of Anne Frank has there been such a book as this: The joyful but ultimately heartbreaking journal of a young Jewish woman in occupied Paris, now being published for the first time, 63 years after her death in a Nazi concentration camp.
On April 7, 1942, Hélène Berr, a 21-year-old Jewish student of English literature at the Sorbonne, took up her pen and started to keep a journal, writing with verve and style about her everyday life in Paris — about her studies, her friends, her growing affection for the “boy with the grey eyes,” about…
This was my go-to book when I researched the occupation. Well-written and thorough, it is sensitive, well-balanced, and insightful, neither seeking to blame nor to praise, but to understand a nation in trauma. The photos and personal quotes brought it to life, and it is one of those non-fiction books that the fiction lover can appreciate. It reads seamlessly.
France was slow and somewhat ineffectual in organizing resistance movement. In Occupation Ian Ousby challenges the myth that France was liberated " by the whole of France." The author explores the Nazi occupation of France with superb detail and eyewitness accounts that range from famous figures like Simone de Beauvoir, Charles de Gaulle, Andre Gide, Jean-Paul Sartre and Gertrude Stein to ordinary citizens, forgotten heroes and traitors.
Living with the enemy, during the occupation, the women of Paris had to navigate their way between defiance and collusion. This grey area is brilliantly depicted in the interviews with the Parisiennes, as they swing between glamour and deprivation, fear and love. And then came liberation, followed by the years of recovery, retribution, and revenge. These women’s true accounts inspired me for my second book.
“Anne Sebba has the nearly miraculous gift of combining the vivid intimacy of the lives of women during The Occupation with the history of the time. This is a remarkable book.” —Edmund de Waal, New York Times bestselling author of The Hare with the Amber Eyes
New York Times bestselling author Anne Sebba explores a devastating period in Paris's history and tells the stories of how women survived—or didn’t—during the Nazi occupation.
Paris in the 1940s was a place of fear, power, aggression, courage, deprivation, and secrets. During the occupation, the swastika flew from the Eiffel Tower and danger lurked…
On a darkened platform, two destinies become intertwined, and the choices each person makes will change the future in ways neither could have imagined.
Told from alternating perspectives, While Paris Slept reflects on the power of love, resilience, and courage when all seems lost. Exploring the strength of family ties, and what it really means to love someone unconditionally, this debut novel will capture your heart.
The 19th century women's rights movement and the rise of public education intertwine with one woman's story of struggle, perseverance, and love.
Alice Harris is pressed to marry a Civil War veteran twice her age when her family’s inn fails in 1882 in western North Carolina. She remakes herself by learning to farm tobacco, campaigning for the city’s first public schools, and immersing herself in the large and divisive Carter family. But marriage offers a tenuous promise of security. When tragedy strikes, Alice turns to the courts to fight for her independence and discovers an unexpected love.
The 19th century women's rights movement and the rise of public education intertwine with one woman's story of struggle, perseverance, and love.
When her father dies and the family inn falls to ruin in 1882, western North Carolina, thirty-year-old Alice Harris is compelled to marry Jasper Carter, a Civil War veteran twice her age. Far from home and a stranger in a new family, Alice remakes herself. She learns to farm tobacco, mothers her stepson, and comes to love her husband.
However, Alice uncovers pending trouble with the family's land holdings, which threatens their livelihood on the farm. The growth…
