Ernaux, Annie

On the 6th October 2022 Annie Ernaux was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. The judges stated that their motivation for awarding her the prize was “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory“. They went on to say,

_{In her writing, Annie Ernaux consistently and from different angles, examines a life marked by strong disparities regarding gender, language and class. Her path to authorship was long and arduous. Among her novels are ‘A Man’s Place’, ‘A Woman’s Story’ and ‘Years’. Ernaux’s work is uncompromising and written in plain language, scraped clean. And when she with great courage and clinical acuity reveals the agony of the experience of class, describing shame, humiliation, jealousy or inability to see who you are, she has achieved something admirable and enduring.}

Ernaux is the first French woman to ever win the Nobel Prize in Literature and the 17th woman (among 119 Nobel Prize Laureates) to win the Nobel Prize in Literature since the founding of the awards in 1901. Her work has been described as ‘sociological’. ‘autofiction’ and ‘memoir’. She was influenced by the work of Simone de Beauvoir and Pierre Bourdieu.

Les Armoires vides | Cleaned out 1974
Ce qu’ils disent ou rien | Do What They Say Or Else 1977
La Femme gelée | A Frozen Woman 1981
La Place | A Man’s Place 1983
Une Femme | A Woman’s Story 1987
Passion simple | Simple Passion 1991
Journal du dehors | Exteriors 1993
La Honte | Shame 1997
Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit | I Remain in Darkness 1997
La Vie extérieure : 1993–1999 | Things Seen 2000
L’Événement | Happening 2000
Se perdre | Getting Lost 2001
L’Occupation | The Possession 2002
L’Usage de la photo 2005
Les Années | The Years 2008
L’Autre fille 2011
L’Atelier noir 2011
Écrire la vie 2011
Retour à Yvetot 2013
Regarde les lumières mon amour | Look at the Lights, My Love 2014
Mémoire de fille | A Girl’s Story 2016
Hôtel Casanova 2020
Le jeune homme 2022