Notes on Postcards

International Booker Prize-winning translator Jennifer Croft’s memoir of wanderlust, love, and motherhood seen through a lifelong collection of postcards

Postcards have accompanied Jennifer Croft throughout her life, providing comfort, beauty, humor, and inspiration. When she left her hometown for the first time, she used them to stay in touch with her grandmother. As a translator travelling the world, she bought and mailed them to remain connected to the growing list of countries she called home. She fell in love with her husband while shopping for postcards at a flea market. 

In this poetic memoir, Croft takes a closer look at her trusty companions, sharing her collection with the reader and documenting the lifespan of a form of communication that permanently altered the way we see and inhabit the world. Parallel to the story of postcards runs Croft’s own history of familial and romantic love and its culmination in her desire for a child. As she experiences pregnancy, then several devastating family losses, and eventually the birth of twins, she’s forced to rethink everything she thought she knew as a translator and traveler about communication, distance, and desire.

Notes on Postcards is profoundly intimate and honest while also being far-reaching, posing fundamental questions about why and how we connect to each other, to our histories and geographies, our languages, pictures, and ourselves.