The prose is as intense, opaque yet elastic as its morally complex themes: guilt, sexuality and secrecy in a convent in wartime France.

There was nothing particularly religious about this choice of persona; she explained only that it made her service role clearer in the chaos of wartime France.

"Pancakes-Paris" (Viking, 1947) was about food scarcity in wartime France.

They were managed by the fluxus artist Al Hansen, known for pushing a piano out a window in wartime France.

She was a big woman; there were not many fat people in wartime France, but she was one of them.

It was the lovely "Canoe" by Keith Douglas, in which he predicts his coming death in wartime France.

His eyes were on the flames, but his mind was still in wartime France.

In 1942 he had changed his Greek name because German occupiers in wartime France were sending enemy nationals to concentration camps.

She also wrote "Paris From My Window," her vivid impressions of daily life in wartime France.