On 30 March 2020, Annie Ernaux addressed a letter to President Emmanuel Macron, in response to the coronavirus crisis. Her letter, originally entitled ‘Sachez, Monsieur le Président, que nous ne laisserons plus nous voler notre vie‘ and broadcast on France Inter, is translated in English by Alison L. Strayer as ‘Letter to the President‘.

Annie Ernaux’s The Years, translated from French by Alison L. Strayer and published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, has been announced as the 2019 winner of the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. The prize was established by the University of Warwick in 2017 to address the gender imbalance in translated literature and to increase the number of international women’s voices accessible by a British and Irish readership. This year’s prize was judged by Amanda Hopkinson, Boyd Tonkin and Susan Bassnett. (Source: The University of Warwick/ Fitzcarraldo editions)

After the publication of The Years and Happening, Fizacarraldo editions are now bringing into the UK another important book by Annie Ernaux: I Remain in Darkness (trans. Tanya Leslie), the diary that Ernaux wrote as she witnessed her mother suffer from Alzheimer’s disease.

 

Annie Ernaux will be taking part in the Edinburgh literature festival, discussing The Years on Wednesday 21st August. The next day, she will be at the Scotland French Institute to discuss her works and career with the editors of this site, Elise Hugueny-Léger and Lyn Thomas (in French). The audio recording of this encounter is available here.

Annie Ernaux has just been announced as this year’s winner of the Formentor prize, a prestigious international literary award.

Ernaux’sThe Years (trans. Alison Strayer) has been shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize. The name of the winner will be revealed on May 21st.

 

The Years have been published with Fitzcarraldo editions (trans. Alison L. Strayer), https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/books/the-years. Here is the editor’s presentation:

“Considered by many to be the iconic French memoirist’s defining work, The Years is a narrative of the period 1941 to 2006 told through the lens of memory, impressions past and present, cultural habits, language, photos, books, songs, radio, television, advertising and news headlines. Annie Ernaux invents a form that is subjective and impersonal, private and communal, and a new genre – the collective autobiography – in order to capture the passing of time. At the confluence of autofiction and sociology, The Years is ‘a Remembrance of Things Past for our age of media domination and consumerism’ (New York Times), a monumental account of twentieth-century French history as refracted through the life of one woman.”

You can read an extract in the Times Literary Supplement: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/private/our-allegiance-to-the-blazing-nights/