Annie Ernaux, an author who writes from experience without compromise

Annie Ernaux, author of personal and collective memory, whose work finely mixes autobiographical literature and sociological observations, has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature on October 6, 2022.

Ernaux published his first novel, The empty cupboards (the empty cabinets), in 1974. In it, the author fictionally recounts her illegal abortion in 1964, at a time when, while still a student, she gradually distances herself from her original environment: a working-class family in Normandy, with parents first. workers and then merchants. Although 25 years have passed since the publication of the second sex After Simone de Beauvoir, French society was still full of moral judgments and hypocrisy about women’s reproductive rights. With the empty cabinetsErnaux showed the many working-class women who had to resort to clandestine abortions, risking their lives.

With a very sober style (which she describes as “flat writing”), Annie Ernaux gives the image of an uncompromising and honest writer. In the eighties and nineties, she became known with autobiographical works such as I like it (Square), in which he recounts the life of his father. Today his texts are widely taught in French schools and universities.

Woman and society

Due to its ambitious content and its original narrative form, Years (The years) was met with almost unanimous praise at the time of its publication. The book is located at the confluence of autobiography, sociology and collective memory, using the pronouns “she” or “we” instead of “I” to underline the profound sociocultural changes that the writer witnessed since her childhood. in the 1940s until the end of the 20th century.

To mark the inevitable passage of time, The years uses sayings, songs, advertisements, iconic objects, historical events and personal anecdotes. The book tells the story of women’s changing place in French society and their struggle for freedom and sexual independence.

The French media reacted less enthusiastically to the publication of The event (The event), in 2000, which addresses abortion and its consequences before its legalization in 1975. Some critics were clearly uncomfortable with the subject matter and the crude style of her writing.

With this book, Annie Ernaux wanted to lift the silence on what abortion laws mean in practice, which until now had only been tacitly expressed:

“Although many novels mentioned an abortion, they did not give details of exactly how it happened. There was an ellipsis between the time the girl found out she was pregnant and the time she was no longer pregnant.”

The event breaks that silence: with precision but without pathos, Ernaux details the conservative atmosphere of France in the 1960s, the moral judgments, and his own despair, his loneliness as he searched for a solution in a time when the very word abortion “does not had a place in the language. He describes the horrible conditions in which he nearly died: After finally finding someone to perform a clandestine abortion, Ernaux had a catheter inserted and was told she would have an abortion within days. This happened at her dorm and she was taken to the hospital with a hemorrhage.

The event it is not just the story of this personally, physically and psychologically traumatic experience. It also deals with the meaning of that event. Annie Ernaux explores the reactions of the men around her, in the context of her time and social status.

The students around her are fascinated by her “state” of pregnancy, and some even try to take advantage of the fact that “the damage has already been done” to try to sleep with her. At the hospital, Ella Ernaux is humiliated by a young doctor who tells her “I’m not a plumber”, before giving in when she realizes that she is a student.

Today, The event it is considered a reference book on the subject of abortion. The text is often quoted or mentioned in debates about abortion laws or women’s rights.

writing and bad taste

Annie Ernaux admitted in the book:

“It is possible that this story provokes irritation, or revulsion, or that it is accused of bad taste. Having experienced something, whatever it is, gives one the inalienable right to write about it. There is no lesser truth. And if I don’t recount that experience, I am helping to obscure the reality of women and side with male domination of the world.”

In fact, the author has written about many topics that are rarely touched on in traditional literature, such as sex, disease, the aging of the body, dementia and alcoholism, always in a very direct way. This is far from the Proustian tradition: Ernaux is only interested in memories as proof that events have occurred.

For Annie Ernaux, the act of writing allows her to make lived experience visible and sensitive, especially that of women, and above all, to never take their rights for granted.

At the heart of Annie Ernaux’s work is the desire to give a voice to the silenced. In a recent interview, he talks about his support for the #MeToo movement, but also about his affinity with the gilets jaunes movements, which he sees as a manifestation of deep social injustices and a contempt by the elites for the working class and the unemployed.

When Simone Veil passed away in 2017, many “Thank you Simone” inscriptions appeared on the streets of Paris, saluting the role she played in passing abortion laws in France. Similarly, many readers write to Annie Ernaux to thank her, acknowledging the importance of her feminist writing in her lives. Her place in the club of the great internationally recognized French writers is not undeserved.

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Elise Hugueny-Léger, Senior Lecturer, School of Modern Languages, University of St Andrews

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original.