The Wine of Solitude

Introspective, intense and poignant, The Wine of Solitude is the most autobiographical of all Ir ne Nemirovsky s novels, now available in English for the first time. Imbued with melancholy, and regret, it explores the troubled relationship between a young girl, her distant, self-absorbed mother and her mother s lover, Max. We follow the family through the Great War and the Russian Revolution, as the young Hel ne grows from a dreamy, unhappy child into an angry young woman. Through hot summers in a fictionalised Kiev (Nemirovsky s own birthplace) and the cruel winters of St Petersburg, the would-be writer Hel ne blossoms, despite her mother s neglect, into a clear-eyed observer of the life around her. The Wine of Solitude is a powerful tale not of a less of the end of innocence, than disillusionment; the story of an upbringing that produces a young woman as hard as a diamond, prepared to wreak a shattering revenge on her mother.