French writer Annie Ernaux, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2022, on October 10, 2022 in New York Eugene Gologursky
Studied and translated for 30 years in the United States, the 2022 Nobel Prize Winner for Literature Annie Ernaux was honored in New York on Monday evening, acclaimed at the French cultural center and welcomed with her son at the city’s film festival for their family documentary.
The French writer, a figure of feminism and a committed leftist, crowned Thursday by the Nobel committee for “the courage and clinical acuity” of her largely autobiographical work, talked for an hour about literary creation during a conference with the American writer Kate Zambreno.
At least 300 people, mostly women, gave her a standing ovation during the evening at the Villa Albertine in New York, on the prestigious 5th Avenue along Central Park, which houses the cultural services and a bookshop of the French Embassy in the United States.
“I have been absolutely nurtured by literature since childhood. The further I look, I know that reading, that books are a part of my life. I dreamed of my life earlier with books,” said Annie Ernaux, 82, whose remarks in French were translated into English by an interpreter, in front of a conquered French and English-speaking audience.
The writer is famous and has studied in American intellectual and academic circles, and her Nobel Prize in Literature has been extensively covered since Thursday in elite New York newspapers and magazines, such as the New York Times and The New Yorker.
Annie Ernaux’s work is considered an x-ray of a woman’s intimacy that has evolved with the upheavals of French society since the war. In about twenty stories she unravels the weight of social domination and amorous passion, two themes that have marked her journey as a woman torn by working class origins.
During an exchange with the public, Annie Ernaux was warmly thanked by a young woman for letting her “enter feminism”, particularly by reading her autobiographical novel on abortion, “The Event” (2000).
“It’s wonderful for me, carrier, because I don’t feel responsible for this effect my books have on the new generations,” the octogenarian author replied, all smiles.
Annie Ernaux is visiting America’s cultural and economic megacity this week and also presented their family documentary “The Super-8 Years” at the 60th New York Film Festival Monday evening with her son David Ernaux-Briot.
On Wednesday she will be received at Barnard College of Columbia University in New York, a faculty of literature reserved for women.
