Tatiana De Rosnay Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

She was building for years a strong outreach operation and campaign to have “Sarah’s Key” published after the rejection of a sweeping multitude of publishers. She could make a ton of progress in the aftermath.

Many years before success came to the fore, here is how her story begins:

Born in France, west of Paris, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, she was raised in the U.S. The reason: her father – a French of Russian descent – was a scientist at MIT, Boston.

She graduated from high school in Paris. Then she went to college in England. In Norwich, at the University of East Anglia, she could obtain a Bachelor’s degree in English literature. Back to Paris in the 80’s, she started her career as a journalist at Christie’s as a press attaché, and then at Vanity Fair as its Paris editor.

She has written for ELLE, Psychologies, and other prestigious magazines.

She is one of the international bestselling novelists, and one of the top ten European fiction writers.

This is Tatiana De Rosnay.

Tatiana starts writing when she is 11; her first lines live in a diary, inspired by “The Diary of a Young Girl”, written by Anne Frank during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Her paragon for creative writing was Daisy Ashford, too, as she had published her first book, “The Young Visitors”, at the age of 9.

Being influenced by the life story of her mother, Tatiana writes a novel – “A girl named Carrie” – of ninety pages for her mother’s birthday.

Her track record indicates more than ten books between her 11 and 25 years of age, and they are all written in English. Afterwards, she switches to French. It is in her late twenties when she considers starting publishing her works.

Tatiana De Rosnay lives with her husband and their two children in Paris.

It was six years ago when the French drama and war movie, “Sarah’s Key” – its original title is “Elle s’appellait Sarah” – was adapted and based on the novel with the same title. Initially released in France in 2010, a year after the drama triumphed at its New York opening ceremony at the Museum of Modern Art. Gilles Paquet-Brenner is the director of the movie, and Kristin Scott Thomas interprets Julia Jarmond; Mélusine Mayance plays the little girl Sarah.

The New York Times bestseller, “Sarah’s Key”, is written in English. The novel is a Holocaust blend of history, drama, and suspense, published now in more than forty countries.

A dark period in French history is invested in this piece of fiction: during World War II, France is in an intimate collaboration with the Nazis, and the French police, known as the gendarme, arrests more than 13,000 Jews, incl. people of foreign origin, and 4,000 children among them. They are taken by buses to a cycling stadium, Vel d’Hiv, and, starving for weeks, are dispatched to Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp.

De Rosnay admits that, during the 70’s, the tragic event and the role of France during the Vel d’Hiv operation, targeting children and women for the first time during the war, were not in the know and were not taught at school. It takes her decades to come to that point in French history and to embark on a two-year research.

The book setting is France, torn between two periods. The two story lines are interpreting different times, with historical accuracy. The novel is a journey between past and present in the pursuit of eye-opening for the tragic events and the sufferings of innocent people. It is about helplessness and apathy; guilt and humiliation; and a sense of redemption and legacy. The plan of France to execute Jewish people in the 1942 Vel d’Hiv operation is brought to light, and present-day France and Paris fuse with that story line. Julia Jarmond, an American journalist – a magazine writer – is married to a French and is living in Paris. She is assigned to write about the anniversary of the round-up. Soon after launching her research, she finds out that her husband’s relatives live in the apartment, left by a Jewish family during the war. Julia’s research leads her to a ten-year-old French Jewish girl, Sarah, the arrest of her family, and her younger brother, Michel. The 4-year-old boy escapes the arrest – he is locked up in the cupboard, and Sarah takes the key.

The special dedications of the book go to the author’s grandmother, an actress of Russian descent and a director of the Pushkin Theater in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg); to her mother of British origin and of a family of diplomats; and to Charlotte, her rebellious daughter with a French name.

The author goes through unforgettable moments with some of the survivors of the 1942 Vel’ d’Hiv stadium round-up: some of them are living in the Jewish Quarter of Paris, plus an old couple settled just above De Rosnay’s apartment, and others are based in the USA.

The author’s visits – accompanied by her two children – to two villages around Paris, where families and mothers were split from their children by the French police, tearing off their Jewish yellow stars, trigger Tatiana’s people-need-to-know concept of developing the whole story.

“La Mémoire des murs”, written in French by the author, is the book shedding light on the Vel d’Hiv round-up for the first time. It is about a serial killer; seven young women; and Pascaline Malon, the main heroine and first-person narrator, who follows the traces of the seven victims. One of them turns to be linked to the Vel d’Hiv tragic event. This book is referred to as De Rosnay’s “black diamond” of stories – it is magnificent as the gemstone, and enigmatically black as the crime, madness and death introduced in the book.

The author considers that France is now managing to come to terms with the turbulent past. The book enjoys now the interest of the French students in high school age. Taboos have been dismantled. Slowly.

Tatiana De Rosnay writes love stories, too, in a bunch of thirteen novels, and cataclysmic twists accompany the plots. Some stories are also based in 19th century Paris, or – like “L’appartement temoin”, written in French – are developed in the context of secrets and scars of the past, or reveal the author’s passion about Venice, England’s countryside, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart…

One Response to “Tatiana De Rosnay”

1. Lord Carey: 1 year ago

   I loved Sarah’s Key! I am about to read La Mémoire des murs.

   Reply