[I]t is certain to be the toast of publisher...evokes the heroism, brutality and cowardice of a country under occupation...critics are united in acclaiming it as one of the most important novels about the occupation
Sunday Times

Deftly translated by Sandra Smith, this is possibly the most devastating indictment of French manners and morals since Madame Bovary, as hypnotic as Proust at the biscuit tin, as gruelling as Genet on the prowl. Irène Nemirovsky is, on this evidence, a novelist of the very first order, perceptive to a fault and sly in her emotional restraint
Evening Standard

[I]t is certain to be the toast of publishers...evokes the heroism, brutality and cowardice of a country under occupation...critics are united in acclaiming it as one of the most important novels about the occupation
Sunday Times

It is quite outstanding, full of beauty, pain and truth…We are lucky to have this book
Anne Chisholm, Sunday Telegraph

Suite Francaise is one of those rare books that demands to be read
Helen Dunmore, Guardian

An irresistible work. Suite Francaise clutches the heart
Carmen Callil, The Times

A book of exceptional literary quality, it has the kind of intimacy found in the diary of Anne Frank
TLS

Suite Francaise is the most powerful account of that time and place many of us have ever read…this extraordinary woman’s work is receiving the celebration it deserves. I defy anyone to read it without tears of admiration and pity for its author
Max Hastings, Daily Mail

Suite Francaise is one of those rare books that demands to be read
Helen Dunmore, Guardian

An heroic attempt to write a novel about a nightmare in which the author is entirely embedded
Anita Brookner, Spectator

Remarkable as the story of the publication of Suite Française is, it will finally be of anecdotal interest compared with the importance of the book. Here is the work of a fine novelist at the top of her form, writing about the fate of her adopted country with a pitiless clarity
Patrick Marnham,

A book of exceptional literary quality, it has the kind of intimacy found in the diary of Anne Frank
Times Literary Supplement

What is to me most remarkable is the degree to which Nemirovsky, writing so close to the event, has nevertheless distilled it to extract the significance of each moment and episode. it is literature, not journalism... Her novel is in the classic French tradition, intelligent and sensuous
Scotsman

An irresistible work. Suite Francaise clutches the heart
Carmen Callil, The Times

It is quite outstanding, full of beauty, pain and truth…We are lucky to have this book
Anne Chisholm, Sunday Telegraph

The work of a genuine artist
Julian Barnes, Writers’ and Critics’ pick of 2006, Guardian

An almost unbearably moving account of the French debacle of 1940
Robert Frisk, The Week

Nemirovsky has a great gift for describing the ordinariness that surrounds catastrophes… it is this ability to conjure up people, in all their moods and foibles, their selflessness or vanity, that makes Suite Francaise so remarkable
Literary Review

What is to me most remarkable is the degree to which Nemirovsky, writing so close to the event, has nevertheless distilled it to extract the significance of each moment and episode. it is literature, not journalism... Her novel is in the classic French tradition, intelligent and sensuous
Scotsman

Displays an extraordinary human sensitivity
The Observer

Suite Francaise is the most powerful account of that time and place many of us have ever read…this extraordinary woman’s work is receiving the celebration it deserves. I defy anyone to read it without tears of admiration and pity for its author
Max Hastings, Daily Mail

The work of a genuine artist
Julian Barnes, Writers’ and Critics’ pick of 2006, Guardian

Portraying life in France during the German occupation, it captures people’s anxieties, joys and determination to maintain some normality in trying circumstances
Independent on Sunday

Nicola Hancock 12 August 2010

A superb piece of literature which captures the hearts and souls of the Parisians as they flee the Nazi invasion, going to extreme measures to save themselves from the disasters around them.
Irene Nemirovsky writes a powerful story full of truth, anger and beauty, it is simply astonishing.