Join us as Anne Berest discusses her autobiographical French novel, The Postcard (2021). Winner of the American Choix Goncourt Prize and other awards, the novel follows the author as she investigates a family mystery rooted in the Holocaust and reconnects with her Jewish identity. Book sales and a signing will follow the event.

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 in France, The Postcard was a finalist for the Goncourt Prize and has been a long-selling bestseller in France. The Postcard was published in English on Tuesday May 16 and is her first novel to appear in English translation. 
• (Moderator) Aliza Luft is an assistant professor of sociology at UCLA whose research examines the fluctuating relationships between social identity, ideology, and interpersonal, socio-political action in violent contexts. Her book, Sacred Treason: Race, Religion, and The Holocaust in France, is under contract with Harvard University Press. Another book, the second Handbook of The Sociology of Morality, is forthcoming with Springer (co-authored with Shai Dromi and Steve Hitlin). Other research has been published in journals such as Political Power & Social Theory, Qualitative Sociology, Sociological Theory, and European Journal of Sociology. She has also published numerous op-Eds and interviews in The Washington Post; New Yorker; LA Times; NY Times, and elsewhere.

Accessibility

UCLA strives to honor requests for reasonable accommodations. Requests can be fulfilled more effectively if notice is provided at least 10 days before the event to IAS@library.ucla.edu.