sentences: "Suite française", so far as it was completed, was written in microscopic handwriting in a single notebook; "Tempête" and "Dolce" together filled 140 pages, corresponding to 516 published pages.It would possibly be the earliest work of literary fiction about the Second World War, and is remarkable as a historical novel sequence written during the period that it depicts, transformed far beyond the level of a journal of events such as might be expected to emerge from the turmoil and tragedy Némirovsky experienced.