Annie Erno wins the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature: NPR

Erno, filmed in 1984, is best known for her work dealing with shame and discrimination based on gender and class.

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Erno, filmed in 1984, is best known for her work dealing with shame and discrimination based on gender and class.

Pierre Guillod/AFP via Getty Images

French writer Annie Ernault has been awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature. The 82-year-old is best known for works that blur the line between memoir and fiction.

in advertising, Committee noted Clinical acuity revealing the roots, alienation, and collective limitations of personal memory. The permanent secretary also indicated during his announcement that they were unable to reach Ernaux to inform her of the victory.

Ernault was born in 1940 in France. her first book, I cleaned, in 1974And the It was an autobiographical novel about getting an abortion when it was still illegal in France. I wrote the book in secret. “My husband made fun of me after my first manuscript,” . said The New York Times in 2020. “I pretended to work on my doctoral thesis to have some time on my own.”

The book was translated into English in 1990.

At the announcement’s press conference, Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Literature, was asked if there was a political sense behind awarding the prize to someone who wrote himself about abortion. Olson refused, saying that the committee focused on literature and literary quality. Having said that, “It is very important to us as well, that the winner has a global impact in her work. It can reach everyone.”

After decades of digging into her past in various works, Erno . has published the years, which was considered by many critics as her distinctive statement. First published in 2008, the years It was a comprehensive look at the society that created it. While it was a test for every year of her life from 1940 to 2006, Erno avoided any use of the pronoun “I” in favor of “we” or sometimes “she”.

in review 2018 English translation From the years For the LA Review of Books, writer Azarin Sadek compared his reading to digging through old family photos.

Sadiq writes: “For the reader, images of the past reveal themselves in broken shapes and forms with holes all around.” “You go through this pile of photos and text and feel immersed in the past. The years are gone and gone, and most of the moments you lived – captured only in photos and partly in memory – are gone.”

In 2020 her book girl story It has been translated into English. She recalled her early sexual experiences in her teens and dug it all up before the sexual revolution.

Erno has another book translated into English, slated for release in 2023 titled Look at the lights my love. According to the book’s press release, it’s “a reflection on the big box store phenomenon.” Of course, through the lens of Erno’s own memory.