Notes on Postcards: A Memoir

by Jennifer Croft

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 home for the first time, she used them to stay in touch with her grandmother. When she first fell in love with her husband, one of their first activities together was shopping for vintage postcards at a flea market. When she travelled the world for work and in wanderlust, she acquired a postcard in each place she went. 
    In this intimate and poetic memoir, Croft takes a closer look at her trusty companions, sharing her collection with the reader and documenting the lifespan and history of a beloved, if anachronistic, form of communication. 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, offers a glimpse into how we conceive of ourselves as connected beings in the world.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

448 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication November 10, 2026

About the author

Jennifer Croft won a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship for her novel The Extinction of Irena Rey, the 2020 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing for her illustrated memoir Homesick and the 2018 International Booker Prize for her translation from Polish of Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights. She is also the translator of Federico Falco’s A Perfect Cemetery, Romina Paula’s August, Pedro Mairal’s The Woman from Uruguay, and Olga Tokarczuk’s The Books of Jacob (a finalist for the Kirkus Prize). In 2023, she received an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma with her husband and twins.

Reviews

[Candy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whimsical blend of beautiful writing and the history of vintage post cards.

[Charlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much preferred the memoir parts of this book to those about the history of postcards.