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.