Sarah's Key (novel)

Sarah's Key is a historical fiction novel by Franco-British author Tatiana de Rosnay, composed in English but first published in French translation as Elle s'appelait Sarah in September 2006. Two main parallel plots are followed through the book. The first is that of ten-year-old Sarah Starzynski, a Jewish girl born in Paris, who is arrested with her parents during the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup. Before they go, she locks her four-year-old brother in a cupboard, thinking the family should be back in a few hours. The second plot follows Julia Jarmond, an American journalist living in Paris, who is asked to write an article in honour of the 60th anniversary of the roundup.

The book was rejected by more than 20 publishers before being published by Héloïse d'Ormesson, whom she had profiled in French Elle in 2005.

According to Rosnay's French publisher, Sarah's Key had sold 758,000 copies worldwide by November 2008 and had passed two million copies worldwide by late 2010, reaching this milestone even before the film version was released. Rosnay's U.S. publisher suggests that the global total had reached four million copies by the northern summer of 2011, and eleven million copies by 2020.