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Anne Berest Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Anne Berest

Anne Berest

How to pronounce Anne Berest: burr-EST

Anne Berest Biography

Anne Berest, born September 15, 1979, is the bestselling co-author of How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are and the author of a novel based on the life of French writer Françoise Sagan. With her sister Claire, she is also the author of Gabriële, a critically acclaimed biography of her great-grandmother, Gabriële Buffet-Picabia, Marcel Duchamp's lover and muse. She is the great-granddaughter of the painter Francis Picabia. For her work as a writer and prize-winning showrunner, she has been profiled in publications such as French Vogue and Haaretz newspaper. The recipient of numerous literary awards, The Postcard was a finalist for the Goncourt Prize and has been a long-selling bestseller in France.



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Interview

Anne Berest discusses the mysterious postcard which led her to explore her family's past, and their links to a dark period in Europe's history.

How did your journey to writing The Postcard begin?

On the morning of January 6, 2003, on a snowy day, my mother received an anonymous postcard in her mailbox. There were only four words written on it, that's all, nothing else, but four first names: Ephraïm, Emma, Noémie and Jacques. My mother recognized them immediately—they were the first names of members of our family who had died at Auschwitz in 1942. In other words, these people died during the Holocaust because they were Jews, and sixty years later, someone sent a postcard with their first names, and this someone wanted to remain anonymous. Obviously the first question was: "Who?" And the second: "Why?"

Was there anything else about the postcard your mother received that made you think there was more to discover?

There were a lot of strange things on the postcard that caught my eye. For example, the stamp was upside down. While I was investigating, I learned that an upside-down stamp was used as a code between Resistances fighters during the war. For example, if they wrote, "Sunny weather, Dad is doing great," with an upside-down stamp, it meant the opposite. Another strange thing on the postcard was the picture of the Garnier Opéra House in ...

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Books by this Author

Books by Anne Berest at BookBrowse
The Postcard jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Anne Berest but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Dasa Drndic

    Dasa Drndic

    Dasa Drndic is a distinguished Croatian novelist, playwright, and literary critic. She spent some years teaching in Canada and gained an MA in Theatre and Communications as part of the Fulbright Program. She is an associate ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Postcard

    Try:
    Trieste
    by Dasa Drndic

  • Hubert Mingarelli

    Hubert Mingarelli

    Hubert Mingarelli's is the author of numerous novels, short story collections and fiction for young adults. His books include Quatre soldats (Four Soldiers), which won the Prix de Médicis. He lives in Grenoble. A Meal in... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Postcard

    Try:
    A Meal in Winter
    by Hubert Mingarelli

We recommend 4 similar authors

View all 4 Read-Alikes

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