Photography: Annie Ernaux. Font: C.
The winner of Nobel Prize for Literature It is announced the first Thursday of October. This 2022 we already have the lucky one who has won the highest literary recognition. She is a woman and she is the seventeenth to achieve it. Her name is Annie Ernaux, a French writer known for her autofiction publications..
Many Spanish-speaking readers already know who it is, because in Spain it is quite well known and read. His admirers were partly surprised and partly not, but in any case a great joy. From here we tell you everything you need to know about the distinguished woman with the Nobel Prize for Literature 2022.
Meeting Annie Ernaux
Annie Ernaux is 82 years old. She was born in Lillebonne, France, in 1940. From a very early age he became interested in writing and began fictional narratives that he would soon leave behind because he was always curious to recount his own experiences. What she would begin with autobiographical experiences would later transform into the autofiction for which she has been awarded.
The fact of being born in a working family was also important in his career., away from the intellectual circles that could have encouraged her to develop elitist themes. Quite the contrary, her narratives began in the grocery store run by her parents. Another singular experience was having worked as At par in London in the 60s.
Then, back in France, studied at the University of Rouen for a degree in literature. She was a high school teacher and later continued her teaching career at the Center for Distance Education (CED). In this way, she combined teaching with writing until she left the former in 2000. He has been publishing the most relevant events of his life since the 70s, which shaped her as a person; events that are shared by many contemporary women.
Since the 70s, he has lived in Cergy-Pontoise, a city 40 kilometers from Paris. that allows her to have a life like, she explains, without determinisms, since it is a new city without a historical past that conditions its inhabitants. A form of expression like the one in her work, which somehow seeks human liberation without conditions.
Why have you been awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize for Literature?
Her work has emerged in the same way that she was advancing along the path of life. He wrote about his mother (A woman), about their parents with a class perspective (Place, Shame), his adolescence (Ce qu'ils disent ou rien), his married life (la femme gelee), the abortion she suffered (event) or the breast cancer she had (The usage of the photo).
The themes that weave the work of Annie Arneux are women, class consciousness, the periphery and the sociological ingredient, suffering and vital learning. Ernaux's literary work becomes a shared experience thanks to the personal voice of its author.
In the same way that she lives and overcomes the onslaughts of life, her readers know that there is a feeling that is common to many; just as she frees herself through her writings, she frees a part of the people. Annie Ernaux knows how to break taboos simply and naturally.
On the other hand, there is the difference between autofiction and autobiography. She has carved out a golden path in the narrative reflection of her life through different themes and arguments. However, Annie Ernaux does not write autobiographical texts, he writes autofiction because it creates a complicity with the reader, a type of pact in which it is accepted that the reading content is real, but there are modifications and licenses fictional that do not exist in an autobiographical work. is the novelization life.
Ernaux is emotionally grateful for the award, but He says that the responsibility he has before society and justice is now greater than before. The Swedish Academy, in recognition of his work and contribution, has commented on this:
For the courage and clinical acuity with which he discovers the roots, the estrangements and the collective obstacles of personal memory.
His work: some recommendations
Ernaux's work has permeated Spain and has been translated for years. It has passed through the great publishers such as Six Barral o tusquets. But is the small publisher C who owns the rights to the work of the new Premio Nobel of literature. Good news for this editorial that believes that the news will have a very positive impact on the company; another form of justice similar to that of the oppressed or dominated that Ernaux speaks of in his books. Here are some of them:
- the empty cabinets (1974)Ed. C, 2022. This first novel explores the life of a young woman drowned by humble origins marked by a lack of training and knowledge. This book is still more of a novel.
- the frozen woman (1981)Ed. C, 2015. On the disappointments of male colleagues, how progressives also blame machismo and the liberation of conventional beliefs.
- The place (1983)Ed. tusquets, 2002. A family reflection on class consciousness and improvement in the pursuit of prosperity.
- A woman (1987)Ed. C, 2020. Gender and social class go hand in hand in this book. Ernaux's mother is the protagonist and reflection of a group.
- The shame (1997)Ed. tusquets, 1999. The history of the Duchesne family in the year 1952.
- The event (2000)Ed. tusquets, 2001. One of the author's hardest books where she talks about abortion.
- The use of the photo (2005)Ed. C, 2018. Another book in which Ernaux undresses again to tell us about her breast cancer.