She's not really among France's ruling elite, but de Rosnay is certainly among the cultural elite after her novel Sarah's Key became a breakout hit, first in France and then internationally, and transformed an obscure author into a literary star. It has been adapted into a film starring Kristin Scott Thomas that opens Friday.
But "let them eat cake" is not her style. De Rosnay, 49, struggled for years to become a successful writer, forcing herself to write at the kitchen table in pre-dawn hours as she raised two children. Her big break came just over four years ago when Héloïse d'Ormesson, who ran a small publishing house, saw potential in Sarah's Key, which had been piling up rejection slips from bigger publishers for two years. Even after her success, de Rosnay had to prove that she was French in order to keep her citizenship (she was born in France, but her parents were not).
You might recognize de Rosnay's tenacity in Julia, the journalist at the heart of Sarah's Key, played by Thomas in the film. Directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner and featuring a breakout performance by 10-year-old Mélusine Mayance, it is about a young Jewish girl in 1942 caught up in the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup and sent to a Nazi extermination camp, and a journalist who, 60 years later, tries to find out what happened to her.
For more: Author dives into France's dark past for Sarah's Key | Life | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle
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