Annie Erneaux

 

Annie Ernaux

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Annie Ernaux

Annie Ernaux (née Duchesne; born on 1 September 1940) is a French writer.^[1]

Contents

• 1 Life and work
  • 1.1 Childhood and education
  • 1.2 Literary career
• 2 Awards and distinctions
• 3 Bibliography
• 4 Further reading
• 5 References
• 6 External links

Life and work

Childhood and education

Ernaux grew up in Yvetot in Normandy. She is from a working-class background,^[2] but her parents eventually owned a café-grocery store. She studied at the universities of Rouen and then Bordeaux, qualifying as a school-teacher, and gaining a higher degree in modern literature (1971). She worked for a time on a thesis project, unfinished, on Marivaux.^[3]

In the early 1970s, she taught at the Bonneville Lycée,^[4] at the College of Évire in Annecy-le-Vieux, then in Pontoise, before joining the National Center for Distance Learning (Centre national d'enseignement à distance - CNED).^[5]

Literary career

Annie Ernaux started her literary career in 1974 with Les Armoires vides (Cleaned Out), an autobiographical novel. In 1984, she won the Renaudot Prize for another of her autobiographical works 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.^[6][7]

Very early in her career, she turned away from fiction to concentrate on autobiography.^[8] 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 (Passion simple), 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).^[9] Ernaux also wrote L'écriture comme un couteau (Writing as Sharp as a Knife) with Frédéric-Yves Jeannet.^[9]

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), very well received by French critics, is considered by many to be her magnum opus.^[10] 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.^[11] 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,^[12] 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 from whom the press takes its name.

Awards and distinctions

• 1977 Prix d'Honneur for the 1977 novel Ce qu'ils disent ou rien
• 1984 Prix Renaudot for La Place
• 2008 Prix Marguerite-Duras for Les Années
• 2008 Prix François-Mauriac for Les Années
• 2008 Prix de la langue française for the entirety of her oeuvre
• 2014 Doctor honoris causa of the University of Cergy-Pontoise
• 2016 Strega European Prize for The Years (translated into Italian as Gli Anni (L'Orma)
• 2017 Prix Marguerite-Yourcenar, awarded by the Civil Society of Multimedia Authors, for the entirety of her oeuvre
• 2018 Premio Hemingway per la letteratura for the entirety of her oeuvre
• 2019 Prix Formentor^[13]
• 2019 Premio Gregor von Rezzori for Una Donna
• 2019 Short Listed for the Man Booker International Prize for The Years

In addition, the Annie-Ernaux Award, of which she is the "godmother", bears her 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.
• 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.
• 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.
  • A man's place. Translator Tanya Leslie. Seven Stories Press. 1992. ISBN 978-0-941423-75-5.
• Une Femme, Paris, Gallimard, 1987
  • A Woman's Story. Translator Tanya Leslie. Seven Stories Press. 2003. ISBN 978-1-58322-575-2.
• 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.
• Journal du dehors, Paris, Gallimard, 1993
  • Exteriors. Translator Tanya Leslie. Seven Stories Press. 1996. ISBN 978-1-888363-31-9.
• La Honte, Paris, Gallimard, 1997^[14]
  • 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.
• La Vie extérieure : 1993-1999, Paris, Gallimard, 2000