From the author of Suite Francaise comes a powerful novel of family, war and the end of innocence

"A wonderfully atmospheric novel...captivating and searingly honest... A brilliant coming of age novel" -- Helen Dunmore Guardian, Books of the Year "Haunting...profound...exquisitely wrought" Independent on Sunday "The tangle of this unhappy family is beautifully and ruthlessly analysed... The relationship between mother and daughter is described with uncompromising lucidity... Nemirovsky evokes the places of her childhood with a sensuous clarity" Guardian "The Wine of Solitude is an end-of-innocence story... It is Nemirovsky's powers of social observation...the implacable eye for the nuances of human conduct, that make The Wine of Solitude so memorable" Financial Times "Beautifully written... Her ability to evoke the feeling of time and especially place is remarkable" Scotsman

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