La Tempête qui « balaye les feuilles mortes ». Esthétique et éthique de la guerre dans Suite française d’Irène Némirovsky

Abstract

The aim of this article is to reconstruct the events that accompanied the writing of Tempête en juin, the first part of Suite française, to which Irène Némirovsky devoted herself in the months before her deportation in July 1942. We consider this novel to be the last piece of evidence of a literary season that saw the author gradually rid herself of her favourite themes in favour of a new subject, war. The aim is therefore to analyse the way in which Irène Némirovsky confronts the motifs that traditionally go hand in hand with the representation of war, and how this evolves from 1938, the year of publication of Naissance d'une révolution, right up to her last working days.

Keywords

• Némirovsky (Irène)
• Suite française
• Tempête en juin
• World War II
• exodus 1940