The Story
Since its opening in 1910, the Hotel Lutetia has been a grand Paris institution, a meeting place for artists, intellectuals, musicians, and politicians. André Gide took his lunch here, James Joyce lived in one of its rooms, Picasso and Matisse were regular guests. But the hotel has a darker history, too--from the years before, during, and after the second World War. In this short period, the Lutetia witnessed some of the most dramatic and terrible events in recent history.
In Hotel Exile, Jane Rogoyska evokes in novelistic prose the emotions, dilemmas, and fates of the hotel's patrons. In the 1930s, Europe's bohemian artists and political activists, forced to flee their homes when Hitler came to power, met at the Lutetia with the hope of forming an alternative government. But when war came, Paris was occupied, and the hotel became the headquarters of the German military intelligence service--and the center of their operation to root out enemies of the Reich. In 1945, the Lutetia was requisitioned once more, this time transformed into a reception center for Holocaust survivors who sought refuge after the Liberation. Rogoyska explores what it meant for these three profoundly different groups to live in exile, under the shadow of the dark ideology that dictated the course of their lives.
A masterpiece of empathy and concision, Hotel Exile is about what happens at the edges of a war, passing through the doors of a normally functioning hotel, a site under occupation, and, finally, a shelter and place of healing. Jane Rogoyska's extraordinary new book offers us a vision of individual human beings desperately trying to find a path through some of the twentieth century's most devastating events.
Author: Jane Rogoyska
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 07/07/2026
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.19lbs
Size: 9.11h x 6.11w x 1.31d
ISBN: 9781324089902
Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 05/11/2026
Kirkus Reviews 07/01/2026
About the Author
Rogoyska, Jane: - Jane Rogoyska is the author of Surviving Katyn: Stalin's Polish Massacre and the Search for Truth, a winner of the Mark Lynton History Prize; Gerda Taro: Inventing Robert Capa; and a novel, Kozlowski. She lives in London.
Description
Since its opening in 1910, the Hotel Lutetia has been a grand Paris institution, a meeting place for artists, intellectuals, musicians, and politicians. André Gide took his lunch here, James Joyce lived in one of its rooms, Picasso and Matisse were regular guests. But the hotel has a darker history, too--from the years before, during, and after the second World War. In this short period, the Lutetia witnessed some of the most dramatic and terrible events in recent history.
In Hotel Exile, Jane Rogoyska evokes in novelistic prose the emotions, dilemmas, and fates of the hotel's patrons. In the 1930s, Europe's bohemian artists and political activists, forced to flee their homes when Hitler came to power, met at the Lutetia with the hope of forming an alternative government. But when war came, Paris was occupied, and the hotel became the headquarters of the German military intelligence service--and the center of their operation to root out enemies of the Reich. In 1945, the Lutetia was requisitioned once more, this time transformed into a reception center for Holocaust survivors who sought refuge after the Liberation. Rogoyska explores what it meant for these three profoundly different groups to live in exile, under the shadow of the dark ideology that dictated the course of their lives.
A masterpiece of empathy and concision, Hotel Exile is about what happens at the edges of a war, passing through the doors of a normally functioning hotel, a site under occupation, and, finally, a shelter and place of healing. Jane Rogoyska's extraordinary new book offers us a vision of individual human beings desperately trying to find a path through some of the twentieth century's most devastating events.
Author: Jane Rogoyska
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 07/07/2026
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.19lbs
Size: 9.11h x 6.11w x 1.31d
ISBN: 9781324089902
Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 05/11/2026
Kirkus Reviews 07/01/2026
About the Author
Rogoyska, Jane: - Jane Rogoyska is the author of Surviving Katyn: Stalin's Polish Massacre and the Search for Truth, a winner of the Mark Lynton History Prize; Gerda Taro: Inventing Robert Capa; and a novel, Kozlowski. She lives in London.
