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Annie Ernaux

French writer (born 1940)

Summary

French writer (born 1940)

FieldValue
nameAnnie Ernaux
imageAnnie Ernaux al Salone del Libro (cropped).jpg
captionErnaux in 2017
birth_nameAnnie Thérèse Blanche Duchesne
birth_date
birth_placeLillebonne, France
spouse
children2
education{{Plainlist
awardsNobel Prize in Literature (2022)
website
  • University of Rouen
  • University of Bordeaux}}

Annie Thérèse Blanche Ernaux (; ; born 1 September 1940) is a French writer who was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory". Her literary work, mostly autobiographical, maintains close links with sociology.

Early life and education

Ernaux was born in Lillebonne in Normandy, France, and grew up in nearby Yvetot, where her parents, Blanche (Dumenil) and Alphonse Duchesne, ran a café and grocery in a working-class part of town. In 1960, she travelled to London, England, where she worked as an au pair, an experience she would later relate in 2016's Mémoire de fille (A Girl's Story). Upon returning to France, she studied at the universities of Rouen and then Bordeaux, qualified as a schoolteacher, and earned a higher degree in modern literature in 1971. She worked for a time on a thesis project, unfinished, on Pierre de Marivaux.

In the early 1970s, Ernaux taught at a lycée in Bonneville, Haute-Savoie, at the college of Évire in Annecy-le-Vieux, then in Pontoise, before joining the National Centre for Distance Education, where she worked for 23 years.

Literary career

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 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 and her class of origin.

Early in her career, Ernaux turned from fiction to focus on autobiography. Her work combines historic and individual experiences. She charts her parents' social progression (La Place, La Honte), her teenage years (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), along with a joint memoir with Marc Marie in which the two document their love affair through a series of photographs (L'usage de la photo). Ernaux also wrote L'écriture comme un couteau (Writing as Sharp as a Knife) with Frédéric-Yves Jeannet.

A Woman's Story (Une femme), A Man's Place, and Simple Passion were recognised 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.

Ernaux's 2008 historical memoir Les Années (The Years), well received by French critics, is considered by many to be her magnum opus. In this book, Ernaux writes about herself in the third person ('elle', or 'she' in English) for the first time, providing a vivid look at French society just after the Second World War until the early 2000s. It is the story of a woman and of the evolving society she lived in. The Years won the 2008 , the 2008 Marguerite Duras Prize, the 2008 Prix de la langue française, the 2009 Télégramme Readers Prize, and the 2016 Strega European Prize. Translated by Alison L. Strayer, The Years was a finalist for the 31st Annual French-American Foundation Translation Prize, was nominated for the International Booker Prize in 2019, and won the 2019 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. Her popularity in anglophone countries increased sharply after The Years was shortlisted for the International Booker.

On 6 October 2022, it was announced that Ernaux would be awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory". Ernaux is the 16th French writer, and the first Frenchwoman, to receive the literature prize. In congratulating her, the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, said that she was the voice "of the freedom of women and of the forgotten".

Many of Ernaux's works have been translated into English and published by Fitzcarraldo Editions and Seven Stories Press. Ernaux is one of the seven founding authors from whom the latter Press takes its name.

Political activism

Ernaux supported Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the 2012 French presidential election. In 2018, she expressed her support for the yellow vests protests.

Ernaux has repeatedly indicated her support for the BDS movement, a Palestinian-led campaign promoting boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. In 2018, the author signed a letter alongside about 80 other artists that opposed the holding of the Israel–France cross-cultural season by the Israeli and French governments. In 2019, Ernaux signed a letter calling on a French state-owned broadcasting network not to air the Eurovision Song Contest, which was held in Israel that year. In 2021, after the Operation Guardian of the Walls, she signed another letter that called Israel an apartheid state, claiming that "To frame this as a war between two equal sides is false and misleading. Israel is the colonizing power. Palestine is colonized." In October 2024, Ernaux signed an open letter alongside several thousand authors pledging to boycott Israeli cultural institutions. In December 2025, she was one of over two hundred public cultural figures who signed an open letter urging Israel to release the jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti.

Ernaux signed a letter that supported the release of Georges Abdallah, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1982 for the assassination of an American military attaché, Lt. Col. Charles R. Ray, and an Israeli diplomat, Yacov Barsimantov. According to the letter, the victims were "active Mossad and CIA agents, while Abdallah fought for the Palestinian people and against colonization".

Following the announcement of the award of the Nobel Prize, Ernaux showed solidarity with people's uprising in Iran against their government. The protests that followed the death of Jina Mahsa Amini, a young woman in the custody of Guidance Patrol (Morality Police) initially started against compulsory hijab law in Iran but soon took a broader focus on liberty. Ernaux said in an interview she was "absolutely in favour of women revolting against this absolute constraint".

Personal life

Ernaux married Philippe Ernaux, with whom she had two sons, Éric (born in 1964) and David (born in 1968). The couple divorced in 1981.

She has been a resident of Cergy-Pontoise, a new town in the Paris suburbs, since the mid-1970s.

Works

Les Armoires vides, Paris: Gallimard, 1974; Gallimard, 1984.

    • Ce qu'ils disent ou rien, Paris: Gallimard, 1977; French & European Publications, Incorporated, 1989,

    • La Femme gelée, Paris: Gallimard, 1981; French & European Publications, Incorporated, 1987,

    • La Place, Paris: Gallimard, 1983; Distribooks Inc, 1992,

    • Une Femme, Paris: Gallimard, 1988

    • Passion simple, Paris: Gallimard, 1991; Gallimard, 1993,

    • Journal du dehors, Paris: Gallimard, 1993

  • La Honte, Paris: Gallimard, 1997
    • Shame, translator Tanya Leslie, Seven Stories Press, 1998,

    • «Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit», Paris: Gallimard, 1997

    • La Vie extérieure : 1993–1999, Paris: Gallimard, 2000

    • L'Événement, Paris: Gallimard, 2000,

  • Se perdre, Paris: Gallimard, 2001
    • Getting Lost, translator Allison L. Strayer, Seven Stories Press, 2022

    • L'Occupation, Paris: Gallimard, 2002

    • L'Usage de la photo, with Marc Marie, Paris: Gallimard, 2005

    • Les Années, Paris: Gallimard, 2008,

  • L'Autre fille, Paris: Nil 2011
    • The Other Girl. Translated by Alison L. Strayer. Seven Stories Press. 2025. ISBN 978-1644214879
  • L'Atelier noir, Paris: éditions des Busclats, 2011
  • Écrire la vie, Paris: Gallimard, 2011
  • Retour à Yvetot, éditions du Mauconduit, 2013

    • Regarde les lumières mon amour, Seuil, 2014

    • Mémoire de fille, Gallimard, 2016

  • Hôtel Casanova, Gallimard Folio, 2020

    • Le jeune homme, Gallimard, 2022

    Adaptations

    In addition to numerous theatrical and radio adaptations, three of Ernaux's novels have been adapted for the cinema:

    • L'Événement (2021), directed by Audrey Diwan, released in English as Happening. It received the Golden Lion at the 2021 Venice Film Festival.
    • Passion simple (2020; English title: Simple Passion) directed by Danielle Arbid. It was selected to be shown at that year's Cannes Film Festival.
    • L'Autre (2008), based on L'Occupation and titled The Other One in English.

    Awards and distinctions

    • 1977 Prix d'Honneur for 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 Cergy-Pontoise University
    • 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
    • 2019 Premio Gregor von Rezzori for Una Donna (Une Femme)
    • 2019 Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize for The Years
    • 2021 Elected a Royal Society of Literature International Writer
    • 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature

    From 2003 to 2008, the existed.

    References

    References

    1. (6 October 2022). "The Nobel Prize in Literature 2022".
    2. Ulin, David L.. (21 January 2018). "Unorthodox snapshots of life". Los Angeles Times.
    3. "Annie Ernaux".
    4. (9 December 2019). "'Il aurait peut-être préféré avoir une autre fille': Paternal Mourning in the Work of Annie Ernaux". Irish Journal of French Studies.
    5. Elkin, Lauren. (26 October 2018). "Bad Genre: Annie Ernaux, Autofiction, and Finding a Voice".
    6. "Annie Ernaux - Biography". [[University of St Andrews]].
    7. (15 December 2011). "Annie Ernaux : 'Je voulais venger ma race'". [[L'Obs]].
    8. Héloïse Kolebka. (2008). "Annie Ernaux : "Je ne suis qu'histoire"". [[L'Histoire]].
    9. [http://www.cercle-enseignement.com/Espace-auteurs/Interviews/Interviews/Annie-Ernaux#reponses Annie Ernaux] {{Webarchive. link. (5 November 2014 , Cercle-enseignement.com. Retrieved 12 October 2011.)
    10. Ferniot, Christine. (1 November 2005). "1983 : La place par Annie Ernaux". L'EXPRESS.
    11. Schwartz, Christine. (24 May 1992). "The Prodigal Daughter". Newsday.
    12. (3 May 2009). "Annie Ernaux. Les Années". Le Télégramme.
    13. Spafford, Roz. (13 July 1992). "Finding the World Between Two Parents". San Francisco Examiner.
    14. Castro, Jan Garden. (27 August 1995). "Pitfalls, Trials Of Womanhood". St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
    15. Hale, Mike. (3 September 1994). "'Simple Passion' gets to the heart of obsession". Boston Globe.
    16. Reynolds, Susan Salter. (30 September 2001). "Discoveries". Los Angeles Times.
    17. Bernstein, Richard. (28 November 1999). "'Darkness' a look at final illness". Tallahassee Democrat.
    18. (6 May 2009). "People / Personnalités / Annie Ernaux". Elle.
    19. (6 October 2022). "A 'great honour' and 'responsibility': Annie Ernaux on her Nobel prize win". [[Mint (newspaper).
    20. (25 March 2020). "1991 Los Angeles Times Book Prize – Fiction Winner and Nominees".
    21. "Introduction & Overview of Shame". [[BookRags]].
    22. (6 October 2022). "Who Is Annie Ernaux ? A Nobel Prize Winner For Literature". [[SheThePeople]].
    23. Peras, Delphine. (11 February 2010). "Les Années par Annie Ernaux". L'EXPRESS.
    24. Laurin, Danielle. (3 April 2008). "Autobiographie : Les années: le livre d'une vie". CBC/Radio-Canada.
    25. (18 October 2014). "Prix François Mauriac". [[Aquitaine (ancienne région).
    26. "Prix Marguerite Duras".
    27. "Annie Ernaux". The Booker Prizes.
    28. (6 October 2022). "Annie Ernaux wins the Nobel prize in literature for 2022". The Economist.
    29. (21 November 2019). "Winner announced for the 2019 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation". [[University of Warwick]].
    30. (6 October 2022). "Annie Ernaux wins the 2022 Nobel prize in literature". [[The Guardian]].
    31. Bushby, Helen. (6 October 2022). "Annie Ernaux: French writer wins Nobel Prize in Literature". [[BBC News]].
    32. (6 October 2022). "French author Annie Ernaux wins 2022 Nobel Prize for Literature".
    33. Grosjean, Blandine. (10 December 2011). "Annie Ernaux: 'Passion amoureuse et révolte politique, cela va de pair'".
    34. (4 December 2018). "Gilets jaunes, verts, rouges, roses, convergeons !".
    35. Joffre, Tzvi. (6 October 2022). "New Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux's repeatedly supported BDS".
    36. (7 October 2022). "2022 Nobel Prize in Literature winner Annie Ernaux a longtime critic of 'apartheid' Israel".
    37. (31 October 2024). "Authors Call for a Boycott of Israeli Cultural Institutions". New York Times.
    38. (28 October 2024). "Thousands of Authors Pledge to Boycott Israeli Cultural Institutions". [[Literary Hub]].
    39. Wintour, Patrick. (2025-12-03). "More than 200 leading cultural figures call for release of jailed Palestinian leader". The Guardian.
    40. (7 October 2022). "حمایت برنده نوبل ادبیات از زنان ایران: پوشش اجباری حکومتی 'محدودیت مطل' است". صدای آمریکا (Voice of America).
    41. (6 October 2022). "Nobel Winner Annie Ernaux Vows To 'Continue Fight Against Injustice'". Barron's.
    42. (29 July 2022). "Les Années Super-8 d'Annie Ernaux et David Ernaux-Briot".
    43. Cassivi, Marc. (24 May 2022). "Les années filmées d'Annie Ernaux".
    44. (6 October 2022). "La Cergyssoise Annie Ernaux décroche le prix Nobel de littérature". actu.fr.
    45. Tison, Jean-Pierre. (1 February 1997). "Critique: Annie dans l'arrière-boutique". L'EXPRESS.
    46. Browning, Ceci. (2025-05-20). "Annie Ernaux and the bourgeoisie's 'extraordinary erotic capabilities'".
    47. Camhi, Leslie. (2024-10-01). "Book Review: 'The Use of Photography,' by Annie Ernaux and Marc Marie".
    48. O’Hagan, Sean. (2024-10-14). "The Use of Photography by Annie Ernaux and Marc Marie review – snapshots of intimacy". The Guardian.
    49. Massoutre, Guylaine. (19 April 2008). "Littérature française – La chronique douce-amère d'Annie Ernaux". Le Devoir.
    50. Errnaux, Annie. (2025). "The Other Girl". [[Seven Stories Press]].
    51. (2025-10-16). "Annie Ernaux's letter to her 'angelic' dead sister".
    52. (2025-09-24). "The Other One Is Me".
    53. (7 June – 16 July 2023). "Mémoire de fille". [[Comédie Française]].
    54. "'L'occupation'".
    55. "L'Autre fille".
    56. (25 May 2016). "'Les Années' d'Annie Ernaux: un podcast à écouter en ligne".
    57. Tartaglione, Nancy. (11 September 2021). "Venice Film Festival: 'L'Événement' Wins Golden Lion, 'Hand Of God' Takes Grand Jury Prize, Jane Campion Best Director, Penelope Cruz Best Actress, Maggie Gyllenhaal Best Screenplay – Full List". [[Deadline Hollywood]].
    58. (3 June 2020). "The films of the Official Selection 2020". [[Cannes Film Festival]].
    59. Ronnie Scheib. (19 September 2008). "Review: 'The Other One'". [[Variety (magazine).
    60. (6 October 2022). "2022 Nobel Literature laureate is French author Annie Ernaux who believes in 'the liberating force of writing'". [[Times Now]].
    61. "Prix de la Langue Française". Prix Littéraires.
    62. (7 October 2022). "Nobel Prize in Literature 2022: Annie Ernaux, bearing witness to women's experiences and memory". [[The Indian Express]].
    63. "Annie Ernaux".
    64. (30 November 2017). "Prix Marguerite Yourcenar 2017: Annie Ernaux". LaScam.
    65. "Albo d'oro". Secretariat of the Award at the Municipality of Lignano Sabbiadoro.
    66. Verdu, Daniel. (6 May 2019). "La escritora Annie Ernaux gana el Premio Formentor". El País.
    67. "Ernaux vince il premio Von Rezzori 2019".
    68. (20 June 2018). "The Years, Written by Annie Ernaux".
    69. (30 November 2021). "Inaugural RSL International Writers Announced".
    70. "Le prix Annie Ernaux 2003".
    Wikipedia Source

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