"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 Opâera Garnier in Paris. On the back, the names of Anne Berest's maternal great-grandparents, Ephraèim and Emma, and their children, Noâemie 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." --

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AN INSTANT NATIONAL INDIE BESTSELLER

Named a Most Anticipated Book by the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Bustle, Book Riot, Vogue

Named a May ABA Indie Next Pick

Winner of the Choix Goncourt Prize, the Prix Renaudot des lycéens, and the ELLE Readers Prize

"Powerful, meticulously imagined... The Postcard (translated into a lucid and precise English by Tina Kover) takes its readers on a deep dive into one Jewish family's history, and, inextricably, into the devastating history of the Holocaust in France... [A] powerful literary work... that contains a single grand-scale act of self-discovery and many moments of historical illumination."--Julie Orringer, The New York Times Book Review

"Moving...Ms. Berest has done her research, artfully weaving grim facts and figures into her family history...Let's hope that a book like this, which encompasses both the monstrosities of the past and the dangers of the present, will guard us from complacency."--Heller McAlpin, The Wall Street Journal

"In what feels like a literary magic trick, Berest transforms her own family's complex and heartbreaking Holocaust history into a novel that masterfully blends elements of drama, mystery and philosophy. It's propulsive yet deep--an intimate, exacting contemplation of loss that somehow ends in love."--Kate Tuttle, People Magazine

"Stunning...[The Postcard] leaves us wondering whether the opposite of memory is not forgetting, but rather indifference."--Leslie Camhi, The New Yorker

"The Postcard is...a powerful exploration of family trauma...transmitted in the womb or down the generations; a longing for what we don't know and can never know of the people whose lives are responsible for our own existence, and an internalization of the very worst that humans can do to one another, visited on one's own family."--Lauren Elkin, The Washington Post

"Reading this novel is intimate...It is as though Berest has taken us by the hand to lead us through the family home and search for the family graves that don't exist. Who are your invisible ones? she continues to ask through the tour, and we are forced to answer, both on her account and our own."--Virginia Reeves, New York Journal of Books

"The Postcard recreates in stunning detail the lives of Berest's lost family members and weaves them into a detective story, loosely centered on the postcard."--The New York Times

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

"Undeniably compelling...A testament to the power of imagination and an investigation of empathy."--Vogue, A Most Anticipated Book of 2023

"Intimate, profound, essential."--ELLE Magazine

★ "Phenomenal...powerful...brilliant."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

★ "Not only a significant contribution to our understanding of the Holocaust but a moving reflection on loss, memory, and the past, in equal measures heartwarming and heartrending. Highly recommended."--Library Journal (starred review)

★ "Electrifying...Berest is aware that she's relating a tragedy, but her narration rejects the impulse to let her family members' stories rest at that...Acknowledging both the horrors of the Holocaust and the humanity of those it targeted, The Postcard is a commanding family memoir."--Foreword reviews (starred review)

★ "[A] brilliant work of autofiction...The book derives enormous power from seemingly small details...This is a gut-wrenching, exceptional work."--Shelf Awarness (starred review)

"Full of suspense and emotion, The Postcard is a quest for origins that plunges us into the darkest hours of European history. A deeply moving book."--Leïla Slimani, author of The Perfect Nanny

"The Postcard is one of the most beautiful novels I have ever read, and certainly the most beautiful I've read in recent years. It floored me, to put it mildly. I will never forget Ephraïm, Emma, Noémie, and Jacques. Universal figures, they are a part of my, of our family now."--Valérie Perrin, author of Fresh Water for Flowers

"A novel of such intimate power that one feels it in the body as it's read...A brave act of survivorship and storytelling."--Kathryn Ma, author of The Chinese Groove