Irène Némirovksy 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 Française and Fire in the Blood. The Wine of Solitude (Le Vin de Solitude) was first published in France in 1935. Némirovksy died in Auschwitz in 1942.Sandra Smith is a fellow of Robinson College, Cambridge, and has translated all the novels of Irène Némirovksy available in English.'Sandra Smith's translations are of the highest quality.' J.M. Coetzee, New York Review of Books