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Annie Ernaux (b. 1940) |
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French writer, who was awarded
the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2022 "for the courage and clinical
acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective
restraints of personal memory". Annie Ernaux's writing is mostly
autobiographical exploration of memory and personal history. In France,
her works have repeatedly gone into the bestseller lists. "There are beings who are overwhelmed by the reality of others, their way of speaking, of crossing their legs, of lighting a cigarette. They become mired in the presence of others. One day, or rather one night, they are swept away inside the desire and the will of a single Other. Everything they believed about themselves vanishes. They dissolve and watch a reflection of themselves act, obey, swept into a course of events unknown. They trail behind the will of the Others, which in always one step ahead. They never catch up." Annie Ernaux (née Duchesne) was born in Lillebonne Normandy on
September 1st, 1940. She was the only daughter of her parents, Alphonse
and Blanche. Their
first child died of diphtheria before Ernaux was born. Ernaux's mother,
who suffered from Alzheimer's disease, died in 1986, her fathed had
died in 1967. Ernaux grew up in the small town of Yvetot, a
small town in
Normandy, where her parents ran a café-grocery business. Ernaux calls
the
town "Y" in La Honte (1997,
Shame). She starts it with the dramatic
line – as if demonstrating how to open a story:
''My
father tried to kill my mother one Sunday in June, in the early
afternoon.'' Actually, little happens in this novel, which in parts
draws form her own life, when she was 12 years old. Her
first sexual experience Ernaux had in the summer of 1958 with an older
man, called
"H". He looked like Marlon Brando, "the one of Last Tango in Paris,"
as she recalled decades later. Ernaux tells about this affair, and her
depression and eating disorder she developed afterwards in Mémoire de fille (2016, A Girl's
Story). She also writes about her experiences as an au pair in London
in 1960. L'événement
(2000,
Happening) was an account of Ernaux's
illicit abortion she underwent at the age of twenty-three.
Abortion in France was decriminalized in 1975. Loraine Day argued in
her
article on the book, that "the pride generated by her successful
negotiation of an unwanted pregnancy became a lasting source of
empowerment". ('The Dynamics of Shame, Pride and
Writing in Annie Ernaux's L'événement'
by Loraine Day, Dalhousie French
Studies, Vol. 61, Winter 2002)
Audrey Diwan's film adaptation of the novel, starring Anamaria
Vartolomei and Kacey Mottet Klein, won the Golden Lion award at the
Venice film festival in 2021. "I didn’t want the movie only to be about
pain. There is light. There is desire," Diwan said in an interview. ('The Director Behind Happening
on Making a 'Vital' Film About a Woman Seeking an Illegal Abortion' by
Tomris Laffly, Time, May 6,
2022) Ernaux's parents, who had a working-class background, saved
money to send their daughter to
private schools. Ernaux studied at the universities of Rouen and
Bordeaux,
and qualified
as a secondary school teacher. In 1971 she earned a degree in modern
literature from University of Rouen. Before entering the literary world, Ernaux worked as a teacher. For 23 years, she was employed by Centre National d'Enseignement à Distance (CNED, the National Center for Distance Education). In addition, she has taught French literature at U.S. colleges. After retiring in 2000, she devoted herself entirely to writing. Ernaux lives in Cergy-Pontoise, where she moved with her family in 1977. Her marriage to Philippe Ernaux ended in divorce. They had two sons. Ernaux decided not to remarry, but she had short relationships. The autobiographical Les Armoires vides (Cleared Out), Ernaux's first novel, came out in 1974. When her husband learned that she had written a book and it would be published by Gallimard, France's most prestigious publishing house, he said: "If you’re capable of writing a book in secret, then you’re capable of cheating on me." ('A Voice in French Literature: Her Own' by Laura Cappelle, The New York Times, April 7, 2020) Ernaux's second book, Ce qu'ils disent ou rien (1977), was awarded the Prix d'Honneur. With La Place (1984, A Man's Place), the first of her auto-socio-biographies, Ernaux won the Renaudot Prize. Passion simple (1991,
Simple Passion) was about Ernaux's
love affair with a married man, who comes from East Europe, is
well-dressed, and likes being told that he resembles Alain Delon.
A bestseller in France, the book sold 200,000 copies in
two months. During the period when they were together, Ernaux kept a journal, which was published in 2001 under the title Se perdre (Getting Lost). She writes in a
brutally honest way: "He would ring to ask
if he could come around to see me in the afternoon or evening, or, more
rarely, a day or two later. He would arrive and stay just a few hours,
which we spent making love. Then he left, and I would live in wait for
his next call." Both Ernaux and her fellow French Nobel laureate Patrick
Modiano,
who was awarded the honor in 2014, have been
concerned with the workings of memory. Ernaux's perspective often
shifts between past and present; the use of visual images, snapshots,
from her memory, give a cinematographic feeling to her text.
Moreover, this narrative method makes it possible for her to
remain shamelessly objective, and view memories and personal diaries,
the raw
material, with the detachment of a sociologist. "Maybe the true purpose
of my life is for
my body, my sensations and my thoughts to become writing," the narrator
says in Happening. Ernaux has been outspoken in political and social issues, which links her to a long tradition in French literature. "My work is political," she has stated. ('French writer Annie Ernaux awarded Nobel Prize in literature' by Jeffrey Schaeffer, David Keyton and Jill Lawless, The Washington Post, October 6, 2022) Ernaux publicly supported the Yellow Vest protests against President Emmanuel Macron's policies, and in 2020, she addressed a letter to Macron, in response to the coronavirus crisis: "Be aware, Mr President, that we will no longer let our life be stolen from us, it is all we have . . . Nor will we perennially muzzle our democratic freedom, currently restricted, a freedom which makes it possible for my letter". (translated by Alison L. Strayer) Ernaux's other literary prizes include the 2008 Marguerite
Duras Prize and Prix François-Mauriac de la région for Les Années, the 2008 Prix de la
langue française, the 2016 Strega European Prize for Gli Anni (Les Années), the 2917
Prix Marguerite Yourcenar, the Premio Hemingway in 2018, and the Premio
Gegor von Rezzori for Una Donna
(Une Femme). For further reading: Annie Ernaux: An Introduction to the Writer and Her Audience by Lyn Thomas (1999); Annie Ernaux: the Return to Origins by Siobha´n McIlvanney (2001); Rewriting Rewriting: Marguerite Duras, Annie Ernaux, and Marie Redonnet by Cathy Jellenik (2007); Telling Anxiety: Anxious Narration in the Work of Marguerite Duras, Annie Ernaux, Nathalie Sarraute, and Anne He´bert by Jennifer Willging (2007); Writing Shame and Desire: the Work of Annie Ernaux by Loraine Day (2007); 'Du dedans au dehors: trajectories of the self in diaries by Annie Ernaux' by Elise Hugueny-Le´ger, in Parcours de femmes: Twenty Years of Women in French, edited by Maggie Allison and Angela Kershaw (2011); Cinematography in the Works of Annie Ernaux: Writing Memory and Reality by Jacqueline Dougherty (2011); Le vrai lieu: entretiens avec Michelle Porte by Annie Ernaux (2014); E´crire en re´gime me´diatique: Marguerite Duras et Annie Ernaux: actrices et spectatrices de la communication de masse by Marie-Laure Rossi (2015); Making Waves: French Feminisms and Their Legacies 1975-2015, edited by Margaret Atack, Alison S. Fell, Diana Holmes and Imogen Long (2019); Annie Ernaux Bio: A Full Life Story by Gary Hopkins (2022); Exteriors: Annie Ernaux and the Photography by Lou Stoppard (2024) Selected works:
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