The French author also received £800,000
(Picture: Julie Sebadelha/AFP via Getty Images)The Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to French author Annie Ernaux, 82, known for her books The Years, Simple Passion, and A Woman’s Story.
She was awarded the prize “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements, and collective restraints of personal memory,” and has won 10 million SEK (around £800,000).
Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel committee, said: “Ernaux consistently and from different angles, examines a life marked by strong disparities regarding gender, language, and class”.
Ernaux was born in 1940, in Normandy, France, where her parents ran a café and grocery shop in a working-class area. She attended a private Catholic secondary school, where she first felt shameful of having working-class parents.
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— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 6, 2022
The 2022 #NobelPrize in Literature is awarded to the French author Annie Ernaux “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory.” pic.twitter.com/D9yAvki1LL
Ernaux published her first book, Cleaned Out, in 1974. It was a fictionalised account of her experience having an illegal abortion, as well as her transition from working-class to middle-class culture.
She worked as a secondary school teacher from 1977 until 2000, when she retired and devoted herself to writing.
Her book about her father, A Man’s Life, was published in 1983 and earned her a large readership and is considered to be her literary breakthrough,
Ernaux’s 2008 book, The Years, was met with critical acclaim, and won the Prix Renaudot in France in 2008, and the Premio Strega in Italy in 2016, while the English translation of The Years was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2019.
She was awarded the Marguerite Yourcenar Prize for her life’s work in 2017.
Upon awarding Ernaux with the Nobel Prize for Literature, Professor Carl-Henrik Heldin, chair of the Nobel committee, said: "She consistently explores the experience of a life marked by great disparities regarding gender, language, and class.
“Annie Ernaux manifestly believes in the liberating force of writing. Her work is uncompromising and written in plain language, scraped clean.”
He added: “And when she, with courage and clinical acuity, uncovers the contradictions of social experience, describes shame, humiliation, jealousy, or inability to see who you are, she has achieved something admirable and enduring.”
