The Postcard

A BEST BOOK OF 2023

TIME Magazine・NPR・Library Journal・The Globe and Mail・Lilith・Forward Magazine・Toronto Star・The New Yorker



"A testament to the power of imagination and an investigation of empathy."--Vogue

"Stunning."--Leslie Camhi, The New Yorker

"A can't-miss novel."--Chicago Review of Books

"Compelling."--The Washington Examiner

Anne Berest's The Postcard is among the most acclaimed and beloved French novels of recent years. It is at once a gripping investigation into family trauma, 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 Op?ra Garnier in Paris. On the back, the names of Anne Berest's maternal great-grandparents, Ephra?m and Emma, and their children, No?mie and Jacques--all killed at Auschwitz.

Years after the postcard is delivered, the heroine of this novel is moved to discover who sent it and why. What emerges is a moving saga of a family devastated by the travails of the twentieth century and partly restored through the power of storytelling.