Annemarie Selinko (Estate) Denmark

Annemarie Selinko was born in Vienna in 1914. She studied history at the University of Vienna and became a political writer and correspondent. On an assingment to Geneva she met a Danish student, Erling Kristiansen, whom she later married in 1938. When the Second World War broke out, Selinko was living in Denmark, and she and her husband escaped the Gestapo by sailing to Sweden in a fishing boat. While in Sweden she began collecting material for her bestseller Désirée which was published in 1953.

The book was since published into 25 languages and sold twenty million copies world wide. It was also made into a successful film with Marlon Brando and Jean Simmons.

Selinko died in 1986.

Désirée All the passions and intrigues of Bonapart's court are seen through the eyes of the merchant's daughter from Marseilles, a young woman who became Napoleon's financée and, ultimately, the Queen of Sweeden.