Irene Nemirovsky wrote this novel in occupied France in 1941-42, before her deportation to Auschwitz where she would die. The manuscript, hidden by her daughters, was not published until 2004, when it became an international sensation. The first section, 'Storm in June,' follows a diverse cast of Parisians fleeing the German advance in June 1940: a collaborationist writer, a bourgeois couple, a priest, a bank employee, and others, their pretensions and pettiness exposed by crisis. The second section, 'Dolce,' examines a provincial village under occupation, centering on a young woman whose husband is a prisoner of war and the German officer billeted in her home. Nemirovsky's portrait of occupation refuses simple moral categories, showing attraction and collaboration alongside resistance and contempt. The novel's publication sparked controversy over its apparent lack of sympathy for refugees and its seemingly favorable portrait of a German officer, debates complicated by Nemirovsky's own Jewish identity and ultimate fate. The unfinished quality, with three planned sections never written, gives the work additional poignancy. Readers will find here fiction of remarkable sophistication written under impossible circumstances, capturing a moment of historical catastrophe through the daily lives of ordinary people. A unique document that raises profound questions about art, ethics, and survival.