Five key books by Annie Ernaux

Five key books by Annie Ernaux

Ernaux has become a leading voice of her generation with her autobiographical works
Ernaux has become a leading voice of her generation with her autobiographical works. Photo: Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP
Source: AFP

PAY ATTENTION: Click “See First” under the “Following” tab to see Briefly News on your News Feed!

Here are five books that secured Annie Ernaux's place as one of the leading voices of her generation in France and on Thursday, the Nobel Prize for Literature.

'Cleaned Out'

Ernaux's first novel, published in 1974, recounted the abortion she underwent 10 years earlier while still a student.

Lightly fictionalised, it opens with a young woman alone in her student dorm in Paris, feeling humiliation over a pregnancy that she fears will destroy her hopes of escaping a peasant background.

Some critics decried the description of the abortion as obscene, but its fearlessness was groundbreaking.

Ernaux would return to the same subject for her memoir "Happening" in 2000, which was adapted into an award-winning film in 2021.

PAY ATTENTION: Follow us on Instagram - get the most important news directly in your favourite app!

Read also

Loretta Lynn, country music luminary and songwriting pioneer, dies at 90

'A Frozen Woman'

Ernaux's third book analysed her life through the prism of gender, looking at her transformation from a young girl full of dreams into an adult frozen in place by societal demands and patriarchal control.

The book also recounted her life as a mother in the 1970s and her disintegrating marriage -- three years before the couple finally divorced.

'A Man's Place'

Her first major prize came for her 1983 novel "A Man's Place", which won France's Prix Renaudot.

It deals with her conflicted feelings about transitioning from working class to bourgeois life, with Ernaux calling herself as "a class defector".

She describes the chasm that grew between her and her parents -- who ran a small cafe-shop in Normandy -- after she entered a world of university-educated intellectuals.

'The Years'

First published in 2008, "The Years" is considered her masterpiece. It also brought her greater attention internationally with a hugely successful English translation that saw her nominated for the International Booker Prize.

Read also

'Ulysses' European tour seeks modern touch for Joyce's epic novel

Ernaux uses her life story as a way of mapping the wider postwar generation in France, though the Algerian War, sexual liberation, protests and pop culture of the second half of the 20th century.

'A Girl's Story'

Writing in her 70s, Ernaux set off in search of her younger self -- "the girl of '58".

It is the story of her first sexual experience and a portrait of a young girl from Normandy who knew nothing of life and had just left the cocoon of her childhood.

PAY ATTENTION: Сheck out news that is picked exactly for YOU ➡️ find the “Recommended for you” block on the home page and enjoy!

Source: AFP

Authors:
AFP avatar

AFP AFP text, photo, graphic, audio or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium. AFP news material may not be stored in whole or in part in a computer or otherwise except for personal and non-commercial use. AFP will not be held liable for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions in any AFP news material or in transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages whatsoever. As a newswire service, AFP does not obtain releases from subjects, individuals, groups or entities contained in its photographs, videos, graphics or quoted in its texts. Further, no clearance is obtained from the owners of any trademarks or copyrighted materials whose marks and materials are included in AFP material. Therefore you will be solely responsible for obtaining any and all necessary releases from whatever individuals and/or entities necessary for any uses of AFP material.