Helene is a troubled young girl. Neglected by her self-absorbed mother and her adored but distant father, she longs for love and for freedom. As first the Great War and then the Russian Revolution rage in the background, she grows from a lonely, melancholy child to an angry young woman intent on destruction. The Wine of Solitude is a powerful tale of an unhappy family in difficult times and a woman prepared to wreak a shattering revenge.

Author Biography

Irene Nemirovksy was born in Kiev in 1903, the daughter of a successful Jewish banker. In 1918 her family fled the Russian Revolution for France where she became a bestselling novelist, author of David Golder, Le Bal, The Courilof Affair, All Our Worldly Goods and other works published in her lifetime or soon after, as well as the posthumously published Suite Francaise and Fire in the Blood. The Wine of Solitude (Le Vin de Solitude) was first published in France in 1935. Nemirovksy died in Auschwitz in 1942. Sandra Smith is a fellow of Robinson College, Cambridge, and has translated all the novels of Irene Nemirovksy available in English. 'Sandra Smith's translations are of the highest quality.' J.M. Coetzee, New York Review of Books