The Postcard - Anne Berest

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Anne Berest’s The Postcard is among the most acclaimed and beloved French novels of recent years. Luminous and gripping to the very last page, it is an enthralling investigation into family secrets, a poignant tale of mothers and daughters, and a vivid portrait of twentieth-century Parisian intellectual and artistic life.

January, 2003. Together with the usual holiday cards, an anonymous postcard is delivered to the Berest family home. On the front, a photo of the Opéra Garnier in Paris. On the back, the names of Anne Berest’s maternal great-grandparents, Ephraïm and Emma, and their children, Noémie and Jacques—all killed at Auschwitz.

Fifteen years after the postcard is delivered, Anne, the heroine of this novel, is moved to discover who sent it and why. Aided by her chain-smoking mother, family members, friends, associates, a private detective, a graphologist, and many others, she embarks on a journey to discover the fate of the Rabinovitch family: their flight from Russia following the revolution, their journey to Latvia, Palestine, and Paris. What emerges is a moving saga of a family devastated by the Holocaust and partly restored through the power of storytelling that shatters long-held certainties about Anne’s family, her country, and herself.

Anne Berest is the bestselling co-author of How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are (Doubleday, 2014) 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.

Tina Kover's translations for Europa Editions include Antoine Compagnon's A Summer with Montaigne and Négar Djavadi's Disoriental, winner of the Albertine Prize and the Lambda Literary Award, and a finalist for both the 2020 National Book Award for Translated Literature and the PEN Translation Prize.

Recipient of the 2016 Golden Colophon Award for Superlative Achievement & Leadership in Independent Literary Publishing, and a 2017 Epiphany Magazine Honoree for Publishing Excellence, Michael Reynolds is the Editor in Chief of Europa Editions. He serves on the steering committee of the Independent Publisher Caucus and is the founder of Books Across Borders.

Prize-winning and bestselling authors he has worked with at Europa include Mieko Kawakami, Elena Ferrante, Christelle Dabos, Valerie Perrin, Domenico Starnone, Ian Williams, and Anne Berest. He is also an author and a translator whose published translations include three historical mysteries by Carlo Lucarelli, and Viola Di Grado’s prize-winning novel, 70% Acrylic 30% Wool.

Born in Australia, Reynolds now lives in New York.

@reynoldsmichael

Founded in 2005 by the Italian couple, Alessandra Ozzola and Sandro Ferri, Europa Editions has grown to become one of America’s most beloved and successful independent publishing houses. Specializing in work by international writers, Europa is the company behind the success of Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, now an HBO series, Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog, which spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller list, and last year’s Booker Prize winning novel, The Promise by Damon Galgut. Europa is also the publisher of reader and bookseller favorites like Mieko Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs, Jane Gardam’s Old Filth, and Valerie Perrin’s Fresh Water for Flowers and Three. Europa’s list includes prize-winning and bestselling American authors like Aaron Gwynn (All God’s Children, “a masterpiece of western fiction” according to Publishers Weekly), Nick Arvin (Mad Boy, winner or the Colorado Book Award for Fiction), bestselling author Alexander Maksik (The Long Corner, You Deserve Nothing, Shelter in Place), and Audrey Schulman (Theory of Bastards, The Dolphin House)

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