French Writer Annie Ernaux has won the Nobel Prize in literature for 2022, it was announced by the Nobel Foundation on October 6, 2022.
The 82-year-old writer is known for works that blur the line between memoir and fiction. The Prize was given “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements, and collective restraints of personal memory.”
In making the announcement, the committee noted the “clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory.” The permanent secretary also noted during his announcement that they had not been able to reach Ernaux to let her know of the award, worth approximately $900,000 in U.S. dollars.
Ernaux was born in 1940 in France. Her first book, Cleaned Out, in 1974, was an autobiographical novel about obtaining an abortion when it was still illegal in France. She wrote the book in secret. “My husband had made fun of me after my first manuscript,” she told the New York Times in 2020. “I pretended to work on a Ph.D. thesis to have time alone.”
The book was translated into English in 1990.
“I think that when we write, what is really important is that we need to read a lot, the Literature Laureate said in an October 6, 2022 interview with the Nobel Outreach Committee chair Claire Paetkau.
Annie Ernaux gives her advice to young people and speaks about the importance of honesty in writing in this conversation with Paetkau. Recorded on the day the Nobel Prize was announced, Ernaux describes how she found out she was the 2022 literature laureate while listening to the radio alone in her kitchen – and how to her it felt like being “in the desert and there is a call that is coming from the sky, that was sort of the feeling I had.”
The interview was recorded in French and is subtitled in English.
Interview translation
Annie Ernaux: Hello?
Claire Paetkau: Good day, or good evening rather. Am I speaking with Annie Ernaux?
AE: Yes, it’s me. Yes, good evening.
CP: Good evening. My name is Claire Paetkau. We have a tradition here every year to do short telephone interviews with the new laureates. Would you be available for a quick conversation?
AE: Right now?
CP: Yes, right now!
AE: Yes, of course. Of course.
CP: First of all, congratulations on your Nobel Prize. I understand that you just finished a press conference.
AE: Yes.
CP: May I ask, how are you feeling? I imagine it has been a long day.
AE: Yes, half the day, since I only learned that I received the prize around one o’clock. And the press conference went very well because I think that I answered what it means for me to receive the prize, that it’s a great responsibility and at the same time an honour. But that precisely because of this honour I have more responsibilities regarding… regarding my engagement in writing.
CP: So, then where were you when you received the news if it was only at one o’clock?
AE: Listen, I was in the kitchen, where there is a radio. And I wanted to listen to the radio because I wanted to find out who had won the Nobel Prize. Voilà!
CP: And it was you!
AE: Yes it was me!
CP: What an exciting way to receive the news!
AE: Yes, it’s obviously very surprising. All the more because I was alone. It’s like… I will give you a comparison. You are in the desert and there is a call that is coming from the sky. That was sort of the feeling I had.
CP: What a fun story, anyway! You have a long bibliography. For someone just discovering your work, where to start?
AE: You know, I think my books don’t resemble each other. From the perspective of both the topics and content, and sometimes even from a writing perspective. So it’s a little bit difficult and it would be a different recommendation for young people and older people. But the book that would possibly bring together everyone would be The Years. Yes.
CP: OK! You mentioned young people. Do you have a message for young writers, especially for those who are writing in their native language?
AE: I think that when we write, what is really important is that we need to read a lot. Sometimes young people say, “Oh no, I don’t read… I write!” Well, no. That’s not possible. You need to read a lot. And the second message I would give them is not to strive to write well, but rather to write honestly. It’s not the same thing.
CP: Such good advice.
AE: Voilà!
CP: Thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me, we hope to see you in Stockholm in December.
AE: Yes!
CP: Thank you again, and all my congratulations!
AE: Thank you very much.
CP: Goodbye.
AE: Goodbye.
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Ernaux was born in 1940 in France. Her first book, Cleaned Out, in 1974, was an autobiographical novel about obtaining an abortion when it was still illegal in France. She wrote the book in secret. “My husband had made fun of me after my first manuscript,” she told the New York Times in 2020. “I pretended to work on a Ph.D. thesis to have time alone.”
The book was translated into English in 1990.
At the press conference for the announcement, Anders Olsson, the chair of the Nobel committee for literature, was asked if there was a political sentiment behind giving the award to someone who has written so personally about abortion. Olsson rebuffed, saying the committee focuses on literature and literary quality. That said, “it’s very important for us also, that the laureate has universal consequence in her work. That it can reach everyone.”
Annie Ernaux grew up in Normandy, studied at Rouen University, and later taught at secondary school. Her books, in particular A Man’s Place and A Woman’s Story, have become contemporary classics in France. The Years won the Prix Renaudot in France in 2008, the Premio Strega in Italy in 2016, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2019. In 2017, Annie Ernaux was awarded the Marguerite Yourcenar Prize for her life’s work. In 2022, Ernaux was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
One of her books, A Simple Passion, a New York Times Notable Book and France’s #1 best-seller for eight months – with more than 400,000 copies sold – A Simple Passion documents the desires and indignities of a human heart ensnared in an all-consuming passion. As the narrator attempts to plot the emotional and physical course of her two-year relationship with a married foreigner, where every word, event, and person either provides a connection with her beloved or is subject to cold indifference, she seeks the truth behind an existence lived for someone else, and in its aftermath, she finds it.
