Books by the 2022 Nobel Prize Winner in Literature for Beginners

The Guardian suggests some books for beginners and those who start reading Annie Ernaux - female writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature 2022.

French writer Annie Ernaux, 83, has written more than 20 books in her 50-year career. Thanks to winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2022, more and more readers around the world know and read her works.

Annie Ernaux, 83, was born in Lillebonne and grew up in Yvetot, both in the Seine-Maritime department of Normandy, northwestern France.

She studied modern literature at the University of Rouen, then worked as a literature teacher in Annecy, Pontoise and the National Distance Education Centre. She is an honorary doctor of the University of Cergy-Pontoise.

Throughout her career, Annie Ernaux has been awarded many prizes: Renaudot (1984), the French language prize, François Mauriac (2008), Marguerite Yourcenar (2017)... and especially the Nobel Prize in Literature (2022).

The Guardian recommends some books for beginners to start reading Annie Ernaux.

Portrait of Annie Ernaux (Design: The Guardian).

Books for beginners

Annie Ernaux's style is often circular: Same person, same subject, same situation.

To understand more about this writer, let's start with her most recent work - Shame. In Vietnam, the work was released by Nha Nam in May with the name Noi Huc.

The book begins with a chilling narrative sentence: "My father tried to kill my mother on a Sunday in June, early afternoon."

Annie Ernaux grew up in the small town of Yvetot in Normandy, the daughter of a merchant mother. At the age of 12, she witnessed her father attempt to murder her mother.

During that time, she attended a private Catholic high school in Yvetot. At school, she was exposed to other girls from middle-class backgrounds, which embarrassed her because her parents were both from lower-class backgrounds.

"Shame" is the source of the author's feelings about his parents, their profession and living environment (Photo: Nha Nam).

The book you would recommend to others

According to The Guardian, there are many things that Annie Ernaux does well, but she is powerless against desire and love.

Simple Passion (1991) is a book that records the collapse of obsessive love and the mania of Annie Ernaux. In Vietnam, the work was released by Nha Nam in May with the name Crazy Passion.

In Simple Passion, the writer recounts her brief love affair with a younger, married diplomat. It was a secret, fleeting but intense, passionate affair that left her with much pain and longing.

At the time of its release in France, the book received mixed reviews. At that time, a feminist intellectual describing a love affair where men were the dominant party was unacceptable.

"The Madness" is Annie Ernaux's hidden secret love (Photo: Nha Nam).

However, Annie Ernaux writes about the subject of adultery without defending or preaching. She does not say whether it is right or wrong, but only tells about her unrequited love and the range of emotions she experienced during that love affair.

A love story with a foretold ending that is not happy and "meaningless" as the author himself admitted. All of this gives the story a realistic look and surpasses all standards.

If you rush

Two of Annie Ernaux's recent books are only about 40 to 48 pages, aimed at "quick" readers. They are The Young Man and I Will Write To Avenge My People.

The Young Man tells the story of Annie Ernaux's love affair with a 20-year-old man when she was 50. The relationship brought the author back to memories of her own youth, but also made her feel useless.

As a young woman, Annie Ernaux wrote the phrase "I Will Write To Avenge My People" in her diary. It was this line that sparked her writing life and became the published title of her 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature speech - where she passionately outlined the importance of writing and creativity.

Masterpiece

A Girl's Story (2016) tells the story of her first love, her first sexual experience at the age of 18, until she was abandoned by her boyfriend, and had to endure Annie Ernaux's contempt and discriminatory eyes.

The author unpacks the inherent discrimination, how sexual desire is normalized to be a part of life for men, but stems from judgment for women.

The book you will never forget

In 1963, when Happening was conceived, abortion was still illegal in France. Faced with an unplanned pregnancy, this book is a journey through Annie Ernaux's emotions as she tries to convince a doctor to help her have an abortion.

The first in her working-class family to go to college, Annie Ernaux had hope for the future. But her life was shattered when she became pregnant unexpectedly.

The work describes the author's efforts in fear and despair when her boyfriend and close friends abandoned her one by one for fear of being implicated.

"I found that what was growing inside me was a stigma against social failure," says the character Annie.

In Happening, Annie Ernaux confides: "Perhaps the real purpose of my life is to let my body, my feelings, and my thoughts become writing. In other words, something understandable and universal that makes my existence merge into the lives and minds of others."

The book, which conveys a message about women's right to control their bodies, was adapted into a film and won the Golden Lion at the 2021 Venice Film Festival.

Annie Ernaux receives the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature (Photo: Getty Images).

The book deserves to be better known.

According to The Guardian, one book by Annie Ernaux that deserves to be more widely known is Exteriors.

In this book, the author steps out of his suffocating inner world, the inner world of interpersonal relationships and the outside world.

She offers a glimpse into the spaces that intersect with her own life: the dentist's waiting room, the supermarket, the train station,...

If you only read one book by Annie Ernaux

From 1941 to 2006, many consider Annie Ernaux's fictional memoir The Years to be her masterpiece.

The work offers an expansive view of the social landscape that shaped her: personal and collective histories intertwined in postwar France, written in narrative style.

The Years won the Marguerite Duras Prize and the François Mauriac Prize in 2019, and was listed by Le Monde magazine as one of the 100 most brilliant literary works of French literature.

In particular, through this work, Annie Ernaux created a new literary genre: "collective autobiography".

Phuong Hoa (according to dantri.com.vn)

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