It has been announced by the Swedish Academy that the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to 82-year-old French Novelist and Professor of Literature, Annie Ernaux with the citation, “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements, and collective restraints of personal memory”.
Born in 1940 in Lillebonne, Ernaux’s oeuvre whilst deeply autobiographical also explores the experiences of her generation, her parents’, women, and the French people in general. The main themes shared through Ernaux’s work are the body and sexuality; intimate relationships; social inequality; and time and memory. Ernaux often draws comparisons with fellow French Novelist Marcel Proust.
Ernaux has written a number of celebrated autobiographical novels including, Les armoires vides (1974), La Femme gelée (1981), and La place (1983).
Anders Olsson of the Swedish Academy said during the announcement ceremony, that “Her work is uncompromising and written in plain language, scraped clean … And when she with great courage and clinical acuity reveals the agony of the experience of class, describing shame, humiliation, jealousy or inability to see who you are, she has achieved something admirable and enduring”.
The Nobel Prize in Literature is not the first significant commendation received by Ernaux; the author was elected a Royal Society of Literature International Writer (2021) and has also won the Renaudot Prize (1984), the Marguerite Duras Prize (2008), and the Premio Hemingway (2018), amongst many others.
The Swedish Academy has said that they had not been able to reach Ernaux by phone and consequently, the latest Nobel Laureate has not released any comment on having been awarded the prize. Ernaux will be presented with the award, consisting of a gold medal, diploma, and cash prize of 10 million Swedish kronor, on 10 December 2022.
Past Nobel Laureates in the field of literature have included 16 French writers (more than any other nation) ‒ Sully Prudhomme (1901), Frédéric Mistral (1904), Romain Rolland (1915), Anatole France (1921), Henri Bergson (1927), Roger Martin du Gard (1937), André Gide (1947), François Mauriac (1952), Albert Camus (1957), Saint-John Perse (1960), Jean-Paul Sartre (1964), Claude Simon (1985), Gao Xingjian (2000), Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (2008), Patrick Modiano (2014), and Annie Ernaux (2022).
Words by Luke Horwitz
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