Sandra Smith

A lost masterpiece of French literature, this epic novel of life under Nazi occupation was discovered 62 years after the author's tragic death at Auschwitz. Originally intended to be in five parts, the two that form this work are complete in themselves. Part One, "A Storm in June," is set in the chaos and mayhem of the massive 1940 exodus from Paris on the eve of the Nazi invasion. Part Two, "Dolce," opens in the provincial town of Bussy during the...

Diane is the owner of Happy People Read and Drink Coffee, a literary café in Paris. When her husband and daughter die in a car accident, her life is overturned and the world as she knows it instantly disappears. Trapped by her memories, she moves to a small town on the Irish coast. There she falls into a surprising and tumultuous romance with Edward, a taciturn photographer who lives next door.

From the moment Sylvie and Andrée meet in their Parisian day school, they see in each other an accomplice with whom to confront the mysteries of girlhood. For the next ten years, the two are the closest of friends and confidantes as they explore life in a post-World War One France, and as Andrée becomes increasingly reckless and rebellious, edging closer to peril. Sylvie, insightful and observant, sees a France of clashing ideals and religious hypocrisy—and...

"'This story has haunted me since I was a child,' begins Anne Sinclair in a personal journey to find answers about her own life and about her grandfather's, Léonce Schwartz. What her tribute reveals is part memoir, part historical documentation of a lesser known chapter of the Holocaust: the Nazi's mass arrest, in French the word for this is rafle and there is no equivalent in English that captures the horror, on Dec. 12, 1941 of influential Jews--the...

An activist and documentary filmmaker, who was arrested in occupied France at the age of fifteen, presents this deeply personal account of her experiences during the Holocaust and the death of her father in a concentration camp that overshadowed her whole life.

The day his mother dies, Meursault notices that it is very hot on the bus that is taking him from Algiers to the retirement home where his mother lived; so hot that he falls asleep. Later, while waiting for the wake to begin, the harsh electric lights in the room make him extremely uncomfortable, so he gratefully accepts the coffee the caretaker offers him and smokes a cigarette. The same burning sun that so oppresses him during the funeral walk will...