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First publication in the UK for this novel which will be essential reading for anyone who bought "Suite Francaise". Set in 1903 during a radical period of upheaval in European history, it is an unsparing observation of human motives and the abuses of power, an elegy to a lost world and unflinchingly topical cautionary tale. Beautifully packaged.
Synopsis
In 1903, Leon M - a devout terrorist - is given the responsibility of 'liquidating' Valerian Alexandrovitch Courilof, the notoriously brutal and cold-blooded Russian Minister of Education, by the Revolutionary Committee. This is an unsparing observation of human motives and the abuses of power and an elegy to lost world.
Book Details
Publisher:
VINTAGE
Publication Date:
02-Oct-2008
ISBN:
9780099493983
Guardian review
The Courilof Affair
Lee Rourke the guardian Sat 22 November 2008
Pre-dating Jean-Paul Sartre (Les Mains Sales) and Albert Camus (Les Justes) by 15 years, Irène Némirovsky's sixth novel, first published in 1933, explores the complexities of a "devout terrorist" caught up in an epoch of cultural and political turmoil. It is 1903 and León M is handed the grim but noble task of "liquidating" the "universally despised" Russian minister of education, Valerian Alexandrovitch Courilof, a cold-blooded dictator who has been deemed a legitimate target by a "revolutionary committee". This insists that he should be assassinated "in public, in the most grandiose manner possible". Through a series of journal entries found after León M's death in 1932, Némirovsky not only unravels the machinations of a revolutionary mind, but rewrites historical events - the novel is based on a real assassination. Like Sartre and Camus, Némirovsky paints a fictional picture that resonates deep in the contemporary mind, ensuring that terrorism is something more than just a moral and philosophical question.
