Belle du Seigneur (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)

First published in Paris in 1968, Belle du Seigneur is considered the masterpiece of Albert Cohen, a Jew who served the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, who became Israel's first Prime Minister, and worked for the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees after World War II. This tortuous love story revolves around an adulterous affair between Sola, the ostentatious son of the Chief Rabbi of Cephalonia and Ariane d'Auble, a beautiful, blonde, Protestant aristocrat. Threatened by impending war and the growing anti-Semitism of Europe in the mid-1930s, the two struggle to keep passion alive. While Ariane molds herself into the perfection of femininity, Sola takes on a bitter cruelty that translates into revenge against the ostracism of himself and his people.