Annie Ernaux

Annie Ernaux

Annie Ernaux (born in Lillebonne, Seine-Maritime on 1 September 1940) is a French writer.

She won the Prix Renaudot in 1984 for her book La Place (A Man's Place), an autobiographical narrative focusing on her relationship with her father and her experiences growing up in a small town in France, and her subsequent process of moving into adulthood and away from her parents' place of origin.

As a child, Annie Ernaux lived in Yvetot in Normandy, where her parents ran a café-grocery store. Very early in her career, she turned away from fiction to concentrate on autobiography. Her work combines historic and individual experiences. She charts her parents' social progression (La place, La honte), her adolescence (Ce qu'ils disent ou rien), her marriage (La femme gelée), her passionate affair with an eastern European man ("Simple Passion") her abortion (L'événement), Alzheimer's disease (Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit), the death of her mother (Une femme) and breast cancer (L'usage de la photo). Ernaux also wrote L'écriture comme un couteau (which should be understood as Writing as sharp as a knife) with Frédéric-Yves Jeannet.

A Woman's Story, A Man's Place, and Simple Passion were recognized as The New York Times Notable Books, and A Woman's Story was a Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Shame was named a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1998, I Remain in Darkness a Top Memoir of 1999 by The Washington Post, and The Possession was listed as a Top Ten Book of 2008 by More Magazine.

Her 2008 historical memoir Les Années (The Years) is considered by many to be her 'magnum opus', and it was very well received by French critics. In this book Ernaux writes of herself in the third person (elle) for the first time, providing a vivid look at French society from just after the Second World War until the early 2000s. It is the poignant social history of a woman and of the evolving society she lived in. The Years won the 2008 Françoise-Mauriac Prize of the Académie française, the 2008 Marguerite Duras Prize, the 2008 French Language Prize, the 2009 Télégramme Readers Prize, and the 2016 Premio Strega Europeo Prize. Translated by Alison L. Strayer, The Years was a Finalist for the 31st Annual French-American Foundation Translation Prize. In 2018 she won the Premio Hemingway.

Many of her works have been translated into English and published by Seven Stories Press. Ernaux is one of the seven founding authors of the press from which it got its name.

Bibliography

• Les Armoires vides, Paris, Gallimard, 1974; Gallimard, 1984, ISBN 978-2-07-037600-1
  • Cleaned out. Translator Carol Sanders. Dalkey Archive Press. 1996. ISBN 978-1-56478-139-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
• Ce qu'ils disent ou rien, Paris, Gallimard, 1977; French & European Publications, Incorporated, 1989, ISBN 978-0-7859-2655-9
• La Femme gelée, Paris, Gallimard, 1981; French & European Publications, Incorporated, 1987, ISBN 978-0-7859-2535-4
  • A Frozen Woman. Translator Linda Coverdale. Four Walls Eight Windows. 1995. ISBN 978-1-56858-029-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
• La Place, Paris, Gallimard, 1983; Distribooks Inc, 1992, ISBN 978-2-07-037722-0
  • La Place. Translator Tanya Leslie. Psychology Press. 1990. ISBN 978-0-415-05926-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  • A man's place. Translator Tanya Leslie. Seven Stories Press. 1992. ISBN 978-0-941423-75-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
• Une Femme, Paris, Gallimard, 1989
  • A Woman's Story. Translator Tanya Leslie. Seven Stories Press. 2003. ISBN 978-1-58322-575-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
• Passion simple, Paris, Gallimard, 1991; Gallimard, 1993, ISBN 978-2-07-038840-0
  • Simple Passion. Translator Tanya Leslie. Seven Stories Press. 2003. ISBN 978-1-58322-574-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
• Journal du dehors, Paris, Gallimard, 1993
  • Exteriors. Translator Tanya Leslie. Seven Stories Press. 1996. ISBN 978-1-888363-31-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
• La Honte, Paris, Gallimard, 1997
  • Shame, Translator Tanya Leslie, Seven Stories Press, 1998, ISBN 978-1-888363-69-2
• Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit, Paris, Gallimard, 1997
  • I Remain in Darkness. Translator Tanya Leslie. Seven Stories Press. 1999. ISBN 978-1583220146.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
• La Vie extérieure : 1993-1999, Paris, Gallimard, 2000
  • Things Seen. Translator Jonathan Kaplansky. University of Nebraska Press. 2010. ISBN 978-0803228153.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
• L'Événement, Paris, Gallimard, 2000, ISBN 978-2-07-075801-2
  • Happening. Translator Tanya Leslie. Seven Stories Press. 2001. ISBN 978-1-58322-256-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
• Se perdre, Paris, Gallimard, 2001
• L'Occupation, Paris, Gallimard, 2002
  • The Possession. Translator Anna Moschovakis. Seven Stories Press. 2008. ISBN 978-1-58322-855-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
• L'Usage de la photo, with Marc Marie, Paris, Gallimard, 2005
• Les Années, Paris, Gallimard, 2008, ISBN 978-2-07-077922-2
  • The Years. Translator Alison L. Strayer. Seven Stories Press. 2017. ISBN 978-1609807870.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
• L'Autre fille, Paris, Nil, 2011 ISBN 978-2-84111-539-6
• L'Atelier noir, Paris, éd. des Busclats, 2011
• Écrire la vie, Paris, Gallimard, 2011.
• Retour à Yvetot, éditions du Mauconduit, 2013.
• Regarde les lumières mon amour, Raconter la vie, 2014.
• Mémoire de fille, Gallimard, 2016.

External links

• Critical bibliography (Auteurs.contemporain.info)