This is a brutal, brilliant little story of a mother’s social ambition undone by her poisonous relationship with her daughter, written in 1930 and published in English translation after the discovery and huge success of Nemirovsky’s Suite Francaise in 2004. The Kampf family have ascended through 1920s Parisian society since Alfred Kampf made money on the stock market, but they remain acutely aware of their humble origins. Rosine Kampf, obsessed with her status and desperate for acceptance among the upper classes, decides to throw a ball that will confirm their arrival in high society: “Doesn’t it make you proud to think your parents are giving a ball?” she asks the daughter whom she has spent the day insulting and bullying. Fourteen-year-old Antoinette would love to attend, but Madame Kampf will not hear of it: “This kid, this snotty-nosed kid, coming to the ball! Can you just picture it?” Instead, Antoinette is instructed to address the 200 envelopes inviting all manner of glamorous and high-profile guests; but fatally for Madame Kampf, she also relies on her furious daughter to undertake another critical element of the arrangements… the denouement is delicious and handled with consummate skill.

First published in French in 1930, Éditions Bernard Grasset; first published in English translation in 2007, Vintage