A Parisian Literary Salon (in London)

Anne Berest and Alba Arikha In Conversation With Hannah MacInnes

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Join two of Paris’s literary voices – the celebrated Prix Goncourt finalist and actor Anne Berest and author and musician Alba Arikha – as they explore their new novels placing the city centre-stage.

The City of Lights comes to London for one special night as we bring together two acclaimed authors.

The winner of the American Choix Goncourt Prize and the Prix Renaudot Des Lyceens, and nominated for the Prix Goncourt, Anna Berest’s The Postcard is an unforgettable autobiographical novel “of rare grace and importance” (Guardian) depicting her journey to discover the fate of her maternal family – from revolutionary Russia to Latvia, Palestine, Paris, and the horrors of Auschwitz, where her great-grandparents and their children were murdered.

Alba Arikha is renowned as a memoirist and musician. There are several overlaps between both authors: Alba’s work also features the Holocaust, as her father, the artist Avigdor Arikha, was a survivor of the camps. And her godfather, Samuel Beckett, helped Anne’s grandmother Myriam escape the Nazis. Her new novel, Two Hours, is ‘a radiant story of loss and love’ (James Lasdun) that sees protagonist Clara travel between Paris and New York in search of meaning, freedom, and a life that might have been.

Both authors join us live in London for a unique meeting of minds.

This event is held in partnership with the Jewish Literary Foundation.

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Anne Berest

Award-Winning Novelist and Actor

The great granddaughter of Spanish-born artist Francis Picabia and French Resistance fighter Gabriële Buffet-Picabia (Marcel Duchamp’s lover and muse), Anne Berest is an actor and author. She has been profiled in Vogue (France), Haaretz newspaper, and has been a Chanel ambassador. With her sister Claire, Berest wrote Gabriële, a biography of her great grandmother. She is also a co-author of the best-selling work of nonfiction How to be Parisian Wherever You Are (Ebury Press, 2014), translated into thirty-five languages.

Alba Arikha

Novelist, Memoirist, Musician

Alba Arikha is a novelist and musician. She has written six books in fiction and non fiction, including Where to Find Me, longlisted for the 2020 Wingate Prize, and the acclaimed memoir Major/Minor, shortlisted for the Spear’s Awards. Her new novel, Two Hours, is out now with Eris Press. She has also written the libretto for two operas, most recently Blue Electric, an adaptation of her memoir, which was performed in 2020 at the Playground theatre. Her work has been published in the TLS, the London Magazine, Tortoise Media and others. She is also a pianist and a singer/songwriter and has performed her French songs in London and Paris, where she grew up.

Hannah MacInnes

Journalist and Broadcaster

Hannah MacInnes is a broadcaster and journalist. Alongside hosting How To Academy’s live programmes and podcast, she presents a cultural show on Times Radio and interviews on-stage at a number of other major literary events. She is the host of The Klosters Forum Podcast series and has written for the Radio Times, the Evening Standard and TLS. Before going freelance she worked for 8 years at BBC Newsnight, as Planning Editor and as a Producer / Filmmaker.