The Nobel prize in literature 2022 has been awarded to French author Annie Ernaux “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory”.
Ernaux, who writes novels about daily life in France as well as non-fiction and is one of her country’s most acclaimed authors, had been among the favourites to win the prize. The Nobel said that they had not yet been able to reach her on the phone, but expected to be able to speak to her soon.
Ernaux is the first French writer to win the Nobel since Patrick Modiano in 2014. She becomes the 16th French writer to have won the Nobel to date.
Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel committee, said that in her work, “Ernaux consistently and from different angles, examines a life marked by strong disparities regarding gender, language and class”.
Her debut was Les armoires vides, published in 1974 in France and as Cleaned Out in English in 1990. It was her fourth book, La place or A Man’s Place, that was her literary breakthrough.
A Man’s Place and A Woman’s Story, which was originally published in 1988 in French, have become contemporary classics in France. Ernaux won the Prix Renaudot in France in 2008 for her autobiography The Years, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker International prize in 2019 when it was translated into English by Alison L Strayer.