“for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory”
WEB DESK / AMN / Stockholm
Noted French author Annie Ernaux won 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”, the award-giving body said on Thursday.
The prize is awarded by the Swedish Academy and is worth 10 million Swedish crowns ($914,704).
“We concentrate on literature and literary quality”, not on current affairs, the Swedish academy has said. But it does feel poignant that an author known for her work about abortion has been selected in the year that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in the US.
Ernaux’s UK publisher Fitzcarraldo is “over the moon” that the long-tipped author has been chosen for this year’s award, reports the Guardian.
Mats Malm, the permanent secretary of the Nobel Committee, said that he had not been able to reach Ernaux yet. He “expects her to become aware of the news soon.”
Ernaux, who writes novels about daily life in France as well as non-fiction and is one of her country’s most acclaimed authors, had been among the favourites to win the prize. The Nobel said that they had not yet been able to reach her on the phone, but expected to be able to speak to her soon.
Ernaux is the first French writer to win the Nobel since Patrick Modiano in 2014. She becomes the 16th French writer to have won the Nobel to date.
Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel committee, said that in her work, “Ernaux consistently and from different angles, examines a life marked by strong disparities regarding gender, language and class”.
Ernaux was born in 1940 and grew up in the small town of Yvetot in Normandy. She studied at Rouen University, and later taught at secondary school. From 1977 to 2000, she was a professor at the Centre National d’Enseignement par Correspondance. Olsson said her “path to authorship was long and arduous”.
Her debut was Les armoires vides, published in 1974 in France and as Cleaned Out in English in 1990. It was her fourth book, La place or A Man’s Place, that was her literary breakthrough.
A Man’s Place and A Woman’s Story, which was originally published in 1988 in French, have become contemporary classics in France. Ernaux won the Prix Renaudot in France in 2008 for her autobiography The Years, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker International prize in 2019 when it was translated into English by Alison L Strayer.