The 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to French novelist Annie Ernaux on Thursday for ‘the boldness and clinical acuity’ displayed in her primarily autobiographical works exploring social inequity and one’s own memories.
Ernaux, 82, ‘consistently and from different angles investigates a life characterised by major discrepancies regarding gender, language, and status,’ states the Swedish Academy, which explained its choice.
Ernaux, the first Frenchwoman to receive the literary award, noted that receiving it came with ‘a responsibility.’
‘I was shocked beyond belief. As a writer, I never imagined that would be on my landscape’ Ernaux spoke to SVT, a Swedish broadcaster. ‘It is a great responsibility to testify,’ the author said. ‘I must do so with accuracy and justice in relation to the world, not necessarily in terms of my writing.’
Writing, she has argued in the past, is a political act that exposes social inequalities. The academy stated, ‘And for this end she utilises language as ‘a knife,’ as she puts it, to rip away the veils of imagination.’
Her first book, Les Armoires Vides, was published in 1974, but Les Années, published in 2008 which was later translated in 2017, brought her international acclaim.
The academy praised the book, calling it ‘her most ambitious endeavour, which has gained her an international name and a raft of supporters and literary disciples.’
Ernaux, who was up in a humble Normandy family of grocers, wrote about class and her struggles to adapt the customs and values of the French aristocracy while remaining faithful to her working class roots.
Anders Olsson, a member of the Swedish Academy, told Reuters that she chooses a ‘long road’ in her life. She is a strong woman.
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