A French Christmas

The English-speaking Francophiles and travellers among us who like nothing more than to suss out the soul of a foreign place can rejoice in this endearing collection of Christmas stories from ten of France’s most esteemed writers - past and present - skilfully translated * Foreword Reviews *A joy to hold and page through, as it is beautifully produced … The Christmas themes are treated with a refreshing originality and variety, and I can imagine returning to reread this collection for many Christmases to come * The Fictional 100 *Wonderful anthology … It’s funky, it’s wild, it’s French * The Drunken Odyssey *

Guy de Maupassant (1850-93) was known for his hugely influential short stories and the vivid realism of his novels. He was born in Normandy and served in the Franco-Prussian War, which would become the subject of some of his best-known stories. Maupassant enjoyed financial and critical success before illness led to his death in an asylum at the age of forty-two.

Irène Némirovsky 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, All Our Worldly Goods, The Dogs and the Wolves and other works published in her lifetime or soon after, such as the posthumously published Suite Française and Fire in the Blood. She was prevented from publishing when the Germans occupied France and moved with her husband and two small daughters from Paris to the safety of the small village of Issy-l’Evêque (in German occupied territory). It was here that Irène began writing Suite Française. She died in Auschwitz in 1942.