Annie Ernaux is a French writer, professor of literature, and Nobel laureate. Her literary work, mostly autobiographical, maintains close links with sociology. She was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory”.
Many of her works have been translated into English and were published by the Seven Stories Press. Ernaux is one of seven founding authors that have given the press popularity. Some of the best books written by Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux included Cleaned Out (1974), Shame (1997), Happening (2000), Getting Lost (2001), and The Years (2008).
What is Annie Ernaux Famous For?
- Annie Ernaux is a writer, professor of literature, and Nobel laureate.
- She is famous for winning Nobel Prize in Literature (2022).
What is Annie Ernaux Nationality?
Ernaux was born on 1st September 1940 in Lillebonne, France with the birth name of Annie Duchesne. She was raised in nearby Yvetot, where her parents ran a café and grocery in a working-class part of town. She holds French nationality and her ethnicity is French-White. Her father’s name is Alphonse Duchesne and her mother’s name is Blanche Duchesne.
In 1960 she traveled to London where she worked as an au pair, an experience she would later relate in 2016’s Mémoire de fille (A Girl’s Story). Upon returning to France, she studied at the universities of Rouen and then Bordeaux, qualified as a schoolteacher, and earned a higher degree in modern literature in 1971. She worked for a time on a thesis project, unfinished, on Pierre de Marivaux.
In the early 1970s, she taught at a lycée in Bonneville, Haute-Savoie, at the college of Évire in Annecy-le-Vieux, then in Pontoise, before joining the National Centre for Distance Education (Centre national d’enseignement à distance – CNED) where she was employed for 23 years. Her present age is 82 as of 2022.
How was the Career of Annie Ernaux?
- Annie started her literary career in 1974 with Les Armoires vides (Cleaned Out), an autobiographical novel.
- She won the Renaudot Prize in 1984 for her work in “La Place (A Man’s Place)”.
- Next, she turned from fiction to focus on autobiography.
- Her work combines historic and individual experiences. She charts her parents’ social progression (La place, La honte), her teenage years (Ce qu’ils disent ou rien), her marriage (La femme gelée), her passionate affair with an Eastern European man (Passion simple), her abortion (L’événement), Alzheimer’s disease (Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit), the death of her mother (Une femme), and breast cancer (L’usage de la photo).
- She also wrote L’écriture comme un couteau (Writing as Sharp as a Knife) with Frédéric-Yves Jeannet.
- A Woman’s Story, A Man’s Place, and Simple Passion were recognized as The New York Times Notable Books, and A Woman’s Story was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
- “Shame” was named a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1998, “I Remain in Darkness” a Top Memoir of 1999 by The Washington Post, and “The Possession” was listed as a Top Ten Book of 2008 by More magazine.
- Her 2008 historical memoir “Les Années (The Years)”, well-received by French critics, is considered by many to be her magnum opus.The Years won the 2008 Prix François-Mauriac de la région Aquitaine [fr], the 2008 Marguerite Duras Prize, the 2008 Prix de la langue française, the 2009 Télégramme Readers Prize, and the 2016 Strega European Prize. “The Years” was a finalist for the 31st Annual French-American Foundation Translation Prize, was nominated for the International Booker Prize in 2019, and won the 2019 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation.
- On 6th October 2022, it was announced that she would be awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory”.
- She is the 16th French writer, and the first Frenchwoman, to receive a literature prize.
- In congratulating her, the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, said that she was the voice “of the freedom of women and of the forgotten”.
- Many of Ernaux’s works have been translated into English and published by Seven Stories Press. She is one of the seven founding authors from whom the Press takes its name.
Political Career
- She repeatedly supported the BDS policy against Israel.
- In 2018, the author signed a letter alongside about 80 other artists that opposed the holding of the Israel–France cross-cultural season by the Israeli and French governments.
- In 2019, she signed a letter calling on a French state-owned broadcasting network not to air the Eurovision Song Contest, which was held in Israel that year.
- In 2021, after the Operation Guardian of the Walls, she signed another letter that called Israel an Apartheid state, claiming that “To frame this as a war between two equal sides is false and misleading. Israel is the colonizing power. Palestine is colonized.”
- She signed a letter that supported the release of Georges Abdallah, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1982 for the assassination of US military attaché Lt. Col. Charles R. Ray and Israeli diplomat Yaakov Bar-Simantov. According to the letter, the victims were “active Mossad and CIA agents, while Abdallah fought for the Palestinian people and against colonization”.
- She supported Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the 2012 French presidential election.
- She expressed her support for the Yellow vests protests.
Awards and Achievements
- 1977 Prix d’Honneur for the 1977 novel Ce
- 2008 Prix Marguerite-Duras for Les Annees
- 2008 Prix François-Mauriac for Les Annees
- 2008 Prix de la langue francaise for the entirety of her oeuvre
- 2014 Doctor honoris causa of Cergy-Pontoise University
- 2016 Strega European Prize for the Year
- 2017 Prix Marguerite Yourcenar, awarded by the Civil Society of Multimedia Authors, for the entirety of her oeuvre
- 2021 Elected a Royal Society of Literature International Writer.
- 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature
Who is Annie Ernaux married to?
Ernaux was previously a married woman to her husband, Philippe Ernaux, with whom she has two sons namely Eric and David. The couple divorced in the early 1980s. Since then, she has not been involved in any relationship, and today, she is assumed to be single. Her sexual orientation is straight.
She has been a resident of Cergy-Pontoise, a new town in the Paris suburbs, since the mid-1970s.
What is Annie Ernaux Net Worth?
Annie Ernaux is a French writer, professor of literature, and Nobel laureate. The net worth of Annie is estimated to have $2 million as of 2022. Thanks to her successful career as a writer she has managed to gather all her wealth. She is making her annual salary in thousands of dollars. She is living a cool lifestyle at present.
Annie Ernaux Height and Weight
Annie Ernaux has a standing height of 5 feet 4 inches and weighs around 57 kg. Her eye color is gray and her hair color is brown. Her body type is slim. She has got a healthy body and she maintains her body a lot.
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