Les années
Annie Ernaux

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2022 Nobel Prize Winner for Literature

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Annie Ernaux is the 2022 Nobel Prize Winner for Literature for her complete body of works

(2008) La photo en noir et blanc d'une petite fille en maillot de bain foncé, sur une plage de galets. En fond, des falaises. Elle est assise sur un rocher plat, ses jambes robustes étendues bien droites devant elle, les bras en appui sur le rocher, les yeux fermés, la tête légèrement penchée, souriant. Une épaisse natte brune ramenée par-devant, l'autre laissée dans le dos. Tout révèle le désir de poser comme les stars dans Cinémonde ou la publicité d'Ambre Solaire, d'échapper à son corps humiliant et sans importance de petite fille. Les cuisses, plus claires, ainsi que le haut des bras, dessinent la forme d'une robe et indiquent le caractère exceptionnel, pour cette enfant, d'un séjour ou d'une sortie à la mer. La plage est déserte. Au dos : août 1949, Sotteville-sur-Mer. » Au travers de photos et de souvenirs laissés par les événements, les mots et les choses, Annie Ernaux donne à ressentir le passage des années, de l'après-guerre à aujourd'hui. En même temps, elle inscrit l'existence dans une forme nouvelle d'autobiographie, impersonnelle et collective.
256 pages; Mass Market Paperback; Folio

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4.0

This draws on the same deep well of memories as "La place", and is written in the same style of discontinuous narrative. This time it is set in a wider perspective - a sort of social (and sexual) history over seven decades that is full of remembered detail, only everything is as if vibrant and illuminated. Her individual recollections serve to capture the general mood, from the POV of the left-of-centre educated middle class. She herself is placed at a distance, and considered objectively, in the third person. Thus a weightier book, but still very readable and absorbing, and deftly done, just a couple of words or a phrase sufficing to summon up a moment in time. The effect is epigrammatic. Not having grown up in a French culture, I was conscious of missing quite a few of the references (news items, TV shows, music, fashion, lingo).

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Reviewed by: Russell from USA on 12/1/2024

This was my (English) book club book. I read a lot of it in French first, then English. So glad I did. The translation was good (not great) but the French is very rich. Four stars instead of 5 because I temporarily lost interest about 3/4 of the way (for about 30 pages) - then loved the end!

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Reviewed by: Ellen Rubert from Chicago on 1/18/2024