The 2022 Literature Nobel Prize has been won by France’s author, Annie Ernaux. As per the Nobel Prize committee, Ernaux has been felicitated with the award because of her brave and morally correct art of showcasing the society’s reality. The committee further stated that anyone can separate themselves from the society and then comment on the contradictions between the two, but it writing’s brave art to step into the shoes of a character, and display the nuances of different time phases.
Annie was born and brought up in a small city in Normandy, where her parents used to run a small café.
Back in 1963, in France, where abortions were illegal, a 23-year-old unmarried woman, who was Annie Ernaux, got pregnant, after which she turned her ordeal and her experiences into a book, and presented it to the world to be read. She focused on the effect laid by the relationship of the parents on children. Annie has constantly been writing on the relationship shared by a mother and daughter. She also impeccably describes the relationship that the youth have with the society.
Based on her own life experiences, Annie says that it is a huge challenge to strike a balance between feelings and knowledge when one is young, because the society does not pardon the mistakes committed during this phase of life, and the government too, sides by the society, and lucky are those, whose parents, or at least one of them, stands by them and fights the society for them. Many people remain alone is such circumstances. Annie’s books showcase the way people break down due to this very loneliness and grapple with the same to move forward.
Annie, who was born in 1940, got her first book, ‘Cleaned Out’, published in 1974, whose protagonist is struggling between the society’s opinion regarding abortions and her own feelings about the same, back when abortions were illegal in the country. Just after 1 year after the book was published, the law was made flexible, and 2 years later, a new law was implemented.
