Fiction: LE BAL

By Melissa Katsoulis, Financial Times
Published: Nov 10, 2007

Fiction

LE BAL

by Irene Nemirovsky

translated by Sandra Smith

Vintage £7.99

FT bookshop price: £6.39

The latest gem from the rehabilitated canon of Irene Nemirovsky is ''Le Bal'', the title story in this two-header. As you would expect, it*s full of social comment and adolescent angst.

It takes place on the night of a grand ball hosted by the socially ambitious Kampf family. Alas, Mrs Kampf has forbidden her 14-year-old daughter Antoinette from attending - so the teenager enacts a shocking revenge.

In the second story, ''Snow in Autumn'', Nemirovsky returns to more familiar territory, telling the tale of Tatiana, a loyal servant forced to escape revolutionary Moscow. The story reminds us that when Nemirovsky died in Auschwitz we lost a huge talent.

Melissa Katsoulis