Check out our Most Anticipated Books for 2025

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.



This bio was last updated on 05/18/2023. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

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 ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Books by this Author

Books by Anne Berest at BookBrowse
The Postcard jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

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

Non-members can see 2 results. Become a member
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: The Book of George
    The Book of George
    by Kate Greathead
    The premise of The Book of George, the witty, highly entertaining new novel from Kate Greathead, is ...
  • Book Jacket: The Sequel
    The Sequel
    by Jean Hanff Korelitz
    In Jean Hanff Korelitz's The Sequel, Anna Williams-Bonner, the wife of recently deceased author ...
  • Book Jacket: My Good Bright Wolf
    My Good Bright Wolf
    by Sarah Moss
    Sarah Moss has been afflicted with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa since her pre-teen years but...
  • Book Jacket
    Canoes
    by Maylis De Kerangal
    The short stories in Maylis de Kerangal's new collection, Canoes, translated from the French by ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

Courage - a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to endure it.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

X M T S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.