These two novellas, published after the international success of Suite Française, which posthumously won the Prix Renaudot in 2005, chronicles aspects of the Parisian émigré life in the 1930s that was Némirovsky's own experience.

The title story is a bleak tale about a young girl's relationship with her mother, and the revenge that she decides to take for her ill-treatment. Antoinette Kampf is 14, and just emerging from awkward adolescence. Her vain, social-climbing mother, whose family disowns her when she marries a Jew, hopes to win back their approval and to excite the envy of her friends by giving an ostentatious ball. Mme Kampf's spiteful refusal to let her daughter attend has unforeseen consequences — not least for Antoinette, whose actions precipitate a power shift within the family. The scene in which, having caused the collapse of her mother's hopes, Antoinette watches her unobserved from behind a sofa in the deserted ballroom, is wonderful.

Snow in Autumn, a Chekhovian study of a Russian family's decline, is no less accomplished. Tatiana, an elderly servant, watches helplessly as the aristocratic Karines, who have had to flee Moscow after the Revolution, lose first their money, then their self-respect. At just over a hundred pages, and with its cool, understated prose and sharp psychological accuracy, this is perfect for a train journey — a reminder of what good writing can achieve in a very few words.

Le Bal by Irène Némirovsky

Vintage, £7.99

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