The Wiener Holocaust Library is delighted to host this in conversation book talk event with author Anne Berest on her latest book, The Postcard as part of our Family Histories of the Holocaust series. You can sign up to attend this event in person or online – registration details below.

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.

WINNER OF THE AMERICAN CHOIX GONCOURT PRIZE

WINNER OF THE PRIX RENAUDOT DES LYCÉENS

WINNER OF THE ELLE READERS PRIZE

FINALIST FOR THE GONCOURT PRIZE

FINALIST FOR BOOK CLUB FOR THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD

FINALIST FOR FICTION FOR NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD

About the Speakers

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.

Rachel Seiffert is a British novelist, whose first book, The Dark Room (2001), explored the legacy of Nazi guilt in Germany through the related stories of three twentieth-century Germans. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction the

same year, and won a Betty Trask Award in 2002. Rachel has worked in film and community education and currently writes for a living. In 2003 she was named by Granta magazine as one of twenty ‘Best of Young British Novelists’. Her book A Boy in Winter (2017), was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the International Dublin Literary Award.

Virtual Event guidelines:

1. The Library will send you a Zoom link and joining instructions via email prior to the event. Please check your junk email folders.
2. Please try and join 5 minutes before the event start time and we will let you into the room (do try and bear with us if this takes a few minutes).
3. If you would like to ask a question during the event, please type your question into the chat function, and we will endeavour to answer as many questions as possible during the Q&A. Your webcam will not be seen during this event.

This event is free, although registration via the link below is required. Please note that our free events are run by staff volunteers. Thank you for your patience should we have any technical or audio difficulties. We will do our best to correct them but this is not always possible.