INTERVIEW
After appearing on big screens in 2014, Irene Nemirovsky's novel Suite Français is now in theatrical adaptation, under the direction of Stéphane Laporte and Virginie Lemoine, at the La Bruyère theater in Paris. In Media Culture on Europe 1, the actress tells the "incredible story" that made this book come out in 2004.
"Denise Epstein has always kept French Suite in this leather notebook"
Irene Nemirovsky never knew the joy of knowing that French Suite was published. Arrested in 1942, she died in Auschwitz camp a few months later, at age 39. It is only thanks to her daughters, Denise Epstein and Elisabeth Gille Epstein, that the work of Irene Nemirovsky was able to experience such a radiance. "When they went to the Kommandantur with their father, he put the French Suite notebook in his daughter's suitcase and said: 'never leave it, it's your mother'," says Virginie. The monk. If their father is arrested and deported, Denise Epstein and Elisabeth Gille Epstein owe their survival to a German lieutenant, who allows them to escape. "The children were then hidden in Bordeaux by very courageous nuns Denise Epstein has always kept French Suite in this leather notebook," says the actress.
Renaudot Prize 2004
In the 1970s, a banal daily event will change the fate of this notebook. "A washing machine failure that floods the cellar where the notebook is stored," says Virginie Lemoine. Denise Epstein is scared: the life of the contents of this notebook really does not really matter. She then decides to transcribe it entirely to the typewriter. "In 2004, she met a publisher in a bookstore in Toulouse, who told him to entrust this notebook," says the actress. In 48 hours, Olivier Rubinstein (Denoël editions) makes the decision to publish it. French Suite wins the Renaudot Prize. The first and only time it will be awarded posthumously.