Annie Ernaux writes autobiographical prose that uses individual memory to examine class, gender, desire, family and social change in twentieth-century France. The Years blends personal recollection with photographs, advertising, public events and collective language to create a life story that is deliberately larger than a conventional memoir. Happening recounts an illegal abortion she underwent as a student, while A Woman's Story and A Man's Place approach her parents through the distance created by education and class mobility. Simple Passion records an obsessive affair in spare, unsentimental detail. Ernaux's prose is concise, analytical and deliberately stripped of decorative language, with memory treated as evidence to be examined rather than simply relived. Her work fits autobiographical fiction, French memoir, women's writing and books about class and social mobility. Read more Less
No products in the cart.