This year’s winner shows the merit of the memoir form and marks a turning point for the literature prize, writes Gaby Wood, Director of the Booker Prize Foundation
Annie Ernaux
- Born
Annie Ernaux was born in Seine-Maritime, France, in September 1940. In October 2022 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature
Annie Ernaux grew up in Normandy and studied at Rouen University, before becoming a secondary school teacher. From 1977 to 2000, she was a professor at the Centre National d’Enseignement par Correspondance. Her books, in particular A Man’s Place and A Woman’s Story, have become contemporary classics in France. The Years, shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2019, won the Prix Renaudot in France in 2008 and the Premio Strega in Italy in 2016. In 2017, Annie Ernaux was awarded the Marguerite Yourcenar Prize for her life’s work. She lives in Paris, France.
For the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory.
The Years is the collective memoir of a generation, an almanac of collaged experiences, words, advertisements, graffiti, clothes, films, habits, beliefs.
Gaby Wood, Director of the Booker Prize Foundation, on Annie Ernaux's 'masterpiece'
Social media responses to her win
This year’s #NobelPrize laureate in literature Annie Ernaux has said that writing is a political act, opening our eyes for social inequality. For this purpose she uses language as “a knife”, as she calls it, to tear apart the veils of imagination. pic.twitter.com/TQm6rxjvMp
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 6, 2022
Annie Ernaux, a real victory for literary hotties.
— Merve Emre (@mervatim) October 6, 2022
Yes indeed. As a judge on that panel in 2019 I remember we all absolutely adored The Years and had a lot of robust conversation about it. I am glad to have come in contact with the work of such an amazing and important author. https://t.co/mVQiqH48HC
— Elnathan John (@elnathan_john) October 6, 2022
Annie Ernaux wins the Nobel Prize for literature. Her book, Passion Simple, restored me to reading at a difficult time in my life. It is a great day for memoir, for women, for the precision of language in the service of emotional truth. Thank you, @NobelPrize #annieernaux
— Leslie Camhi (@CamhiLeslie) October 6, 2022
All nominated books
Autobiography is given a new form, at once subjective and impersonal, private and collective, in Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux’s genre-bending masterpiece