Survey of Authors and Secondary Sources

1) Author: Tatiana De Rosnay   Title: Sarah's Key

2) I was interested in this author because she wrote Sarah's key which is about World War 2 and the events involved. The way she does the point of view in this story is interesting how it goes between 1942 and 2002. I was interested in reading Tatiana De Rosnay's book because I think reading a French view on what the French and Germans did in World War 2 would be interesting to hear.

3) Tatiana de Rosnay was born on September 28^th, 1961 in Paris, France.
She is of English, French and Russian descent.  Her father is French scientist Joël de Rosnay, her grandfather was painter Gaëtan de Rosnay and her great-grandmother was Russian actress Natalia Rachewskïa. She was raised in Paris and then moved to Boston. She moved to England in the early 80’s and got a Bachelor’s degree in English literature at the University of East Anglia, in Norwich. She has published eight novels in France in which Sarah's Key is the first novel she wrote in English. Tatiana is married and has two children, Louis and Charlotte and she lives with her family in Paris. She writes for French Elle and is a literary critic for Psychologies magazine. 

4) Some other works by Tatiana de Rosnay are A Secret Kept, Moka, La Mémoire des Murs, Spirales, Le Voisin, Boomerang, La coeur d'une autre, Elle s'appelait Sarah, etc.
Some genres that she used are historical fiction/non-fiction, mystery, tragedy, and educational.

5) Since Tatiana has lived in England, United States and France she is fluent in English and French. Some of Tatiana's interests are travelling, art, music and movies. Tatiana is French and yet she hadn't heard about the Vel d'Hiv until her thirties. It took Tatiana 2 years to write Sarah's Key. Tatiana's daughter who was 11 years old at the time she wrote the book, was her  inspiration for Sarah's character. She went to Beaune la Rolande and Drancy many times and also met actual Vel d'Hiv survivors.

6) Some themes favored by Tatiana are role of religion, discrimination, desire to escape, survival, family, love, losing hope, power, war and will to survive.

7) Some authors that Tatiana de Rosnay have been compared to are Diane Ackerman, John Boyne, J.L. Miles, Eileen Goudge and Linda Masemore Pirrung. 

8)  Since Sarah's Key is a French book, there was no critical articles about it on any of the databases.


Simon, Alissa. "SARAH'S KEY (ELLE S'APPELAIT SARAH)." Variety. 20 Sep. 2010: 46. eLibrary.     
                      Web. 17 Oct. 2010.

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