Last Thursday, the Nobel Prize in Literature crowned the career of French writer Anne Ernault and the “courage” of her autobiographical works that have made her a prominent feminist face in the French and international literary landscape.
The Nobel Committee cited 82-year-old Erno’s “courage and insightful ability to explore” in “discovering the collective roots, distance and backgrounds of personal memory.”
Ernault became the 17th woman to receive this prestigious literary prize, out of a total of 119 winners in the literature category since being awarded the first Nobel Prize in 1901. She also became the 16th French winner in Nobel history, eight years after Patrick Modiano is been awarded.
Ernault also became the first French woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, after all her compatriots who had preceded her were men, including Anatole France, Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, who refused to receive it.
In a statement released by Erno on Swedish television, she described winning the award as a “great honor” and at the same time a “great responsibility” assigned to her.
Although the fluidity of Erno’s prose has long been considered by literary circles to be among the favorites for the Nobel Prize, the writer herself said that her victory was a great “surprise” for her.
Anders Olsson, a member of the Swedish Academy awarding the prize, noted that the winning novelist’s works are “written in plain and simple language.”
He stressed that “it sheds light with courage and a penetrating ability to observe (…) the contradictions of social experience and to address the concepts of shame, humiliation, jealousy and a person’s inability to see who he really is”, stressing that all this is “worthy of admiration”.
Noting that Erno has a “joyful literary style”, the Swedish Academy also stated that the writer sees herself as an autobiographical blogger rather than a “fiction writer”. Erno’s easy, realistic style, free from any structural exaggeration, aroused much interest and analysis.
In his works, Erno tells aspects of his own story, and of his own personal experience, to write in a human way in general.
Erno defines herself as “just a woman who writes”. Through her works of hers inspired mainly by her life, she has created an accurate portrait of the feelings of women that have developed with the turmoil of French society since World War II.
Ernault, a professor of literature at the University of Cergy Pontoise, has published about 20 short stories in which she addressed the impact of class domination and passion, which are obviously themes of her life path as a woman who has suffered the consequences of belonging to its origins.
Among the most important works of Annie Erno are “The Empty Cabinets” of 1974, “The Place” (1982), “The Years” (2008) and finally “Life Memories” (2018). Her latest book, The Young Man, was published in early May by Gallimar, who published her books.
