Annie Ernaux has won the Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming the 17th woman and the 16th French author to receive one of the highest literary honors in the world.
The Swedish academy cited Ernaux, best known for her autobiographical writing, “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory.”
A native of Lillebonne, France, Ernaux worked as a teacher before making her literary debut in 1974 with the novel Cleaned Out. She went on to publish several more books, including A Woman’s Story, A Man’s Place, Exteriors, and Shame.
She has previously been honored with awards including the Prix Marguerite-Yourcenar and the Premio Hemingway, and in 2019 was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize for The Years.
Nobel literature committee chairman Anders Olsson told the Associated Press, “She writes about things that no one else writes about, for instance her abortion, her jealousy, her experiences as an abandoned lover and so forth. I mean, really hard experiences. And she gives words for these experiences that are very simple and striking. They are short books, but they are really moving.”
Ernaux reacted to her victory outside her home, telling journalists, “I am very happy, I am proud. Voila, that’s all.”
But, she said, she was “not bowled over” by the news.
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
