Meeting with Anne Berest

French novelist and screenwriter, friend of the Molli house, anne berest shared with us her reading choices, her current projects, and her preferred writing theme: 'transgenerational genealogy'...

Which book are you currently reading?
I'm making my way through the books of Antoine Wauters, whom I didn't know before... I find them wonderful.

How do you organize your library?
I have a very particular system, it's an organized mess that I know by heart: I know where each book is. For that reason, I can't stand it when they get moved, they're my working tools.

A word you love?
I love the word "Finistère," which is the title of my latest book. It's a word that has always fascinated me literally, it means "the end of the earth," but if you take a Lacanian reading, it can also be understood as "fini de se taire" (finished with staying silent). And in Breton, it's called Pen-ar-Bed, which suggests exactly the opposite: "the beginning of the earth." Isn't that wonderful?

Do you have a project you'd like to share with us?
I'm going to start my next novel, it will still be about transgenerational trauma, but I'm someone who works very slowly! It takes me several years to write a book.

What is your greatest source of pride?
When someone tells me, "my child, my husband… didn't like reading, but they got absorbed in 'The Postcard' and devoured it whole," I've heard this often from readers and nothing moves me as much.

Which books about family do you prefer?
A Pedigree by Patrick Modiano, The Karnovski Family by Israel Joshua Singer, The Labyrinth of the World: an autobiographical trilogy written by Marguerite Yourcenar, which includes 3 volumes: Dear Departed, Archives of the North, What? Eternity.

What is your best reading memory?
I'm 8 or 9 years old, I discover a children's version of an American novel titled Fantasia chez les ploucs by Charles Williams. It was a revelation, an epiphany, an enchantment…
I laughed so much, I understood that literature was the most brilliant thing in the world.

What are you looking for in your work?
I try to build a body of work that, in the end, will unfold like a family tree where each volume would be a branch, from book to book. I question the visible and invisible transmissions between generations, what we inherit, what we free ourselves from, what we receive without choosing it, what we try to break free from in order to become ourselves.

How would you define your writing?
My writing seeks to bring out these silent legacies, sometimes heavy, sometimes redemptive, that shape our paths.

How do you feel when you wear Molli fine-knit accessories or clothing for women?
I feel good!

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