Irène Némirovsky e l’impossibile oblio delle origini

Abstract

This study does not aim to explore the biographical vicissitudes of Irène Némirovsky (1903-1942), a Russian Jewish woman who emigrated to France and died in Auschwitz, but it rather deals with the modalities adopted by the writer in thematising the Jewish condition in her work. The analysis of some novels will show a recurring tension between the desire for integration in the bourgeois world and awareness of the impossible acceptance of diversity that is embodied in each Jewish character in Némirovsky’s works. Integration can only be achieved by rejecting one’s own origin. However, assimilation cannot be completely achieved because of the impossibility of denying these origins.