Still, her mother’s strict “moral activism” (which Ernaux explores in her short account of Blanche’s life, A Woman’s Story , from 1988), together with her scorn towards “unuseful” women, ie women “who stayed at home and had no standing in the world”, has informed the economical or “factual” style of Ernaux’s books. She is determined that they be comprehensible to the social class she believes she betrayed by obtaining a degree in literature from the University of Rouen in 1971, becoming a published author and effectively joining the literary bourgeoisie. For Ernaux, influenced by the thinking of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, class mobility is a violent, brutal process, and she sees it as her duty to at least attempt, via writing, to make amends to those she has left behind. I have a text against Macron that my fingers are burning to write A few years later, she gave us an even shorter portrait, now of her mother, simply called Une femme(1987; A Woman’s Story,1990). It offers significant elucidations on the nature of Ernaux’s writings, shifting between fiction, sociology and history. In its severe brevity it is a wonderful tribute to a strong woman, who more than the father hadbeen able to maintain her dignity,oftenin fraughtconditions. In her relationshiptohermother, shame andoneroussilencearenot present in the same acute way. The films of the Official Selection 2020". Cannes Film Festival. 3 June 2020. Archived from the original on 4 June 2020 . Retrieved 7 October 2022. A 'great honour' and 'responsibility': Annie Ernaux on her Nobel prize win". Mint. 6 October 2022. Archived from the original on 7 October 2022 . Retrieved 7 October 2022. A Man’s Place and A Woman’s Story, which was originally published in 1988 in French, have become contemporary classics in France. Ernaux won the Prix Renaudot in France in 2008 for her autobiography The Years, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker International prize in 2019 when it was translated into English by Alison L Strayer.

a b "2022 Nobel Literature laureate is French author Annie Ernaux who believes in 'the liberating force of writing' ". Times Now. 6 October 2022. Archived from the original on 6 October 2022 . Retrieved 7 October 2022. The narrator strives to put an end to her sorrow and grief however, the act of writing does not lessen them but by writing about them she tries to bury the savage demons of nostalgia, pain, grief deep down in time and memory, so as to free her consciousness from the guilt and shame of them. The act of writing delays the trauma of being exposed to the world. We see that autofiction, as we call it, gives the narrator (author) the impunity as if she is roaming in a sacred and personal space where there is no risk of being judged by the world, as if the author puts her soul in the narrator and thereby freeing herself from the moral indignation of the world and by that means, sacrificing the narrator in place of her. However, as soon the book is finished and ready for publication, it is removed form the fabric of time and it stands of its own as if being infused with ‘being’ of its own and hence does not need anyone anymore to exist in this world; perhaps that is how this book came into existence, probably that’s how every book comes into existence. The Years/ translated by Alison L. Strayer. – NewYork :Seven Stories Press, 2017. – Translation of: Lesannées Many of Ernaux's works have been translated into English and published by Fitzcarraldo Editions and Seven Stories Press. Ernaux is one of the seven founding authors from whom the latter Press takes its name. [31] Political activism [ edit ]

Translated from French by Tanya Leslie (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2021)

Semerene, Diego (18 January 2022). " Simple Passion Review: An Un-Impressionistic Look at Living Out Desire". Slant Magazine . Retrieved 5 February 2023.

Of the living text, this book is only the remainder, a minortrace. One day it will mean nothing to me, just like its living counterpart.' a b Shaffi, Sarah (6 October 2022). "Annie Ernaux wins the 2022 Nobel prize in literature". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 6 October 2022 . Retrieved 7 October 2022.A Man’s Place/ translated by Tanya Leslie. – NewYork :Four Walls Eight Windows, 1992. – Translation of: La place Monweek-endaucentrecommercial. Documentary. Director:NarunaKaplan de Macedo. Writers: AnnieErnaux,NarunaKaplan de Macedo. 2014 It occurred to me that writing should also aim for that—the impression conveyed by sexual intercourse, a feeling of anxiety and stupefaction, a suspension of moral judgment.” Grosjean, Blandine (10 December 2011). "Annie Ernaux: 'Passion amoureuse et révolte politique, cela va de pair' ". Le Nouvel Observateur (in French). Archived from the original on 10 October 2022 . Retrieved 10 October 2022.

Thus, her stall is set. Simple Passion is a slim volume. It is an extremely immediate, deceptively simple book. In it, Ernaux charts a two-year passionate love affair with a married man; notes her behaviours, analyses the effects. She lays it all out with the cool detachment of science, or of pornography; these are the raw facts of her all-consuming passion, the reality of having lived her life entirely in thrall to another. In it she captures the state of waiting, the tortures of passivity, the thin addictiveness of life lived on hope. It occurred to me that writing should also aim for that—the impression conveyed by sexual intercourse, a feeling of anxiety and stupefaction, a suspension of moral judgement.' Following the announcement of the award of the Nobel Prize, Ernaux showed solidarity with people's uprising in Iran against their government. The protests that followed the death of a young woman in the custody of Guidance Patrol (Morality Police) initially started against compulsory hijab law in Iran but soon took a broader focus on liberty. Ernaux said in an interview she was "absolutely in favour of women revolting against this absolute constraint". [38] [39] Personal life [ edit ] The writing process for her is the healing and separation from intoxication into a more clear-headedness, a reflective state where she can see what happened and fully appreciate that experience without feeling the pain anymore, that way her story does not end in tragedy much like a lot of other stories about this kind of obsession do. Ernaux makes you think about your own romantic entanglements rushing you to be able both to fully dwell in them and have the potential to reach mature freedom from the person that enabled you to experience them. Kenny, Glenn (20 January 2022). " 'Simple Passion' Review: An Ordinary Erotic Tale". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 21 January 2022 . Retrieved 5 February 2023.

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This perceived debt to her world of origins has also informed Ernaux’s restless activism, which in the 1970s saw her campaign on behalf of pro-choice groups such as Choisir and the Movement for Abortion and Contraception Freedom (MLAC) in France, and continues with regard toissues as diverse as sexual harassment, the rights of French transport workers and assisted dying. She is scathing about the current government in France and its recent blunders over proposed amendments to the national age of retirement, which have provoked a bitter ongoing period of protests. “I have a text against Macron that my fingers are burning to write,” she admits (in 2020 she wrote a damning open letter to the president skewering his handling of the pandemic). Yet, since the Nobel prize announcement, she has been too busy to find a slot to write it. “Even if you don’t want such a thing to change your life, it inevitably does,” she says, with something close to wistfulness.