Gabriele - by Anne Berest & Claire Berest (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A May 2025 Indie Next List Great Read

"Gabriële is a revealing, heartrending biographical novel about a complicated woman whose imprint on art history is undeniable."--Foreword Reviews

What if revolutions in art and society began with a revolution in love?

Written by Anne Berest (The Postcard) and her sister, Claire Berest, Gabriële is a bold, immersive "true novel" about desire, creativity, and the radical reimagining of how to live.

Paris, 1908. At the height of the Belle Époque, Gabriële Buffet--a brilliant young musician fresh out of Europe's most elite conservatory--meets Francis Picabia, a charismatic and explosive Spanish painter. Their intense love affair plunges them into a Paris alive with artistic experimentation and social rebellion. Soon after, Gabriële meets Marcel Duchamp--younger than Picabia and Gabriële, brilliant, and enigmatic--and before long the three have embarked on a passionate and unconventional relationship that will define their personal stories--and in the process reshape modern art.

As Europe moves from exuberance to upheaval, and World War I looms, Gabriële, Francis Picabia, and Marcel Duchamp and their milieu challenge every convention: about marriage, sexuality, authorship, and artistic freedom. Moving between Paris, New York, Zurich, Berlin, Barcelona, London, and Saint-Tropez, the novel asks a question that feels urgently contemporary: can new ways of loving and being in the world create new ways of thinking?

At once intimate and sweeping, Gabriële restores a pioneering woman to the center of a story long told through men, inviting readers to reconsider genius, collaboration, and the invisible labor behind cultural revolutions.

Review Quotes

Praise for Gabriële 

"Like Gabriële herself, this book takes on big ideas about modern art and modern life--without losing sight of the people caught and crushed in those turning gears."--The New York Times

"A loving tribute to an important figure of the avant garde art movement who was nearly forgotten to history."--TIME Magazine, A Best Book of April 2025

"Gabriële is a revealing, heartrending biographical novel about a complicated woman whose imprint on art history is undeniable."--Foreword Reviews

"The Berest sisters follow up Anne's The Postcard with a colorful portrait of their great-grandmother Gabriële Buffet-Picabia. With lyrical prose, the Berests blend historical context with more intimate insights, such as their attempt to understand why the Picabias were cold to their children. Readers with an affinity for early 20th-century art will especially enjoy this."--Publishers Weekly

"Gabriele would have been a wonderful person to know. Reading this book is the next best thing. Muse to the makers of the modern art movement, brilliant musician in her own right, epic mother figure to a manic menagerie of creative intellects, Gabriele Buffet was one of a kind. This loving portrait of a wild time in the art world reveals a fascinating family history by two sisters delving deep into their familial past."--Reading the West

"An atmospheric excavation of an unusual woman and marriage, both intriguing and remote."--Kirkus Reviews

"Sensitive, refined, intelligent... An unmitigated success."--Les Inrockuptibles

"Wonderful! Two sisters, both novelists, have brought Gabriële Buffet back to life, their words intertwining with luminous tenderness in this finely crafted novel."--L'Obs

"Gabriële is at once a beautiful epic, an intimate family saga, and a meticulous investigation...It tells the story of a turbulent time when everything seemed possible and the story of inherited pain and long-hidden family tragedies."--Le Parisien (Week-End) 

"Gabriele was a powerful woman who has been kept in the shadows of history. It is time to bring her back into the light, and Anne and Claire Berest have done just that in this beautiful and radiant book."--L'Express

"Thanks to Anne and Claire Berest's gracefully crafted novel, Gabriële is finally taking her first steps toward posterity/eternity."--Le Point 

"A captivating subject such as this, and personalities such as these, demand care, and that this precisely what the authors have shown them through their meticulous research and beautifully crafted novel...Gabriële is also a chronicle of one of the essential moments of what we now call the avant-gardes."--Le Monde des Livres