(文末附有中文翻译)
Annie Ernaux (1940) is the Nobel Laureate of 2022. She was born in a small town in Normandy, France to a working-class family. As a teacher of French, she taught at different universities. She is the only writer winning a Nobel Prize for writing autobiographies, which compose most of her works. Trying to journal her own life experiences combing the social facts, she rolled out 15 books.
Cleaned Out (1974), her maiden work tells the story of Denise Lesur, a 20-year-old college student suffering the after-effects of a backstreet abortion. This is a bold autobiographical novel chronicling sex without marriage, abortion and the pains faced by an immature girl. A bold beginning.
Do What They Say or Else (1977) is the second novel by Annie Ernaux. Set in the author’s hometown, the novel tells the story of herself at the age of fifteen. It takes place during the summer and fall of Anne’s transition from middle school to high school in a stream-of-consciousness style.
A Frozen Woman (1981) narrates how Annie grows from a teenager into a marriage and how she struggles between the role of a teacher and the role of a mother with two children. The traditional expectation of a model wife and mother is killing the real her inside.
A Man's Place (1983) describes the life story of Annie Ernaux’s father, who died after two months when she was certified as a teacher. Through her cold observation, the book delineates how her father grew from an ignored and barely educated boy into a tough and practical man paying little affection to his own family. A lot of repressed emotions are hidden but vividly revealed beneath the words. This book helped Ernaux win the Renaudot Prize In 1984
A Woman's Story (2003) is a biography of her mother written from Ernaux’s perspective. The book starts with her mother’s death after suffering from Alzheimer's for a few years. Ernaux’s description attempts to objectively portray the real woman her mother was and the contradictory relationship between mother and daughter, characterized by love and hate, criticism and understanding. This moving memoir won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 1998.
Simple Passion (1991) is Ernaux’s authentic and bold description of her two-year extramarital affair with a Russian man. An erotic movie based on this autobiography and bearing the same name directed by Danielle Arbid was produced and was selected to be shown at the 2020 Cannes Film Festival.
Exteriors (1996) is a random journal written over seven years by Annie Ernaux. It poignantly and poetically displays the feeling of contemporary living in the suburb of Paris.
Shame (1998) is a memoir accounting for a dark family conflict. It begins with cold-hearted words like this: On June 15, 1952, the day "[m]y father tried to kill my mother." It is admirable for Ernaux to have the audacity and courage to recall the ugly anecdotal history and reveal the skeleton in the cupboard of her family.
I Remain in Darkness (1999) is a detailed account of how Ernaux took care of her mother after she suffered from Alzheimer’s. it shows the love between mother and daughter, the despair the daughter experienced after failure in helping the mother to recover, and the pain of losing her mother. The language is powerful, ridden with profound and delicate emotional descriptions.
Things Seen (2000) is a journal sprawling over seven years of Ernaux’s life from 1993 to1999. It combines the author’s private life experiences with the historical observations of the world’s big events, such as Princess Diana’s death, the war crimes tribunal in Bosnia to social issues such as poverty and AIDS.
Happening (2000) is a faithful account of how Annie Ernaux at the age of 23 in 1963 suddenly realized she was pregnant as a college student when pregnancy out of wedlock was still a shame and abortion was illegal. It described how she tried to make herself abort the baby with a knitting needle and then visited a backstreet abortion clinic and finally was sent to a hospital emergency ward. This traumatizing experience almost claimed her life. This narrow death has left the author with a permanent scar. The memoir was adapted into the same-name movie in 2021.
Getting Lost (2022) is the diary Annie Ernaux kept during the time she had a secret love affair with a younger, married Russian diplomat. Her previous novel, Simple Passion, was based on the same affair, but her writing in this journal collection is unfiltered, first-hand account of everything.
The Possession (2008) is another semi-autobiography based on the aftermath of her affair. It’s a first-person self-exposure of her jealousy and obsession over her lover’s new partner after six years of their breakup.
The years (2008) is another personal narrative of the period 1941 to 2006, full of memories and even imaginations of the future. It is considered her representative masterpiece, depicting herself in the third person for the first time and providing a vivid portrait of French society just after the Second World War until the early 2000s. It’s a combination of an individual woman’s story with the factual account of the French society in which she lived. The Years reaped a lot of prizes, including the 2008 Françoise-Mauriac Prize of the Académie française, the 2008 Marguerite Duras Prize, the 2008 French Language Prize, the 2009 Télégramme Readers Prize, and the 2016 Premio Strega Europeo Prize. Its English version translated by Alison L. Strayer was a Finalist for the 31st Annual French-American Foundation Translation Prize.
A Girl’s Story (2022) recounts her traumatizing love story in the summer of 1958 when the eighteen-year-old Ernaux fell in love with a man. It described how she submitted herself to a dominating man and how she was deserted and felt lost.
In 2018 Annie Ernaux won the Premio Hemingway for her whole work. And today, on Oct. 6, 2022, she ascends to the top of the Mount Everest in literature, winning the Nobel Prize in literature.
Congratulation on Annie! I will definitely read your memoirs!
安妮-欧诺(1940)是2022年的诺贝尔奖获得者。她出生在法国诺曼底一个小镇上的工人家庭。作为一名法语教师,她曾在多所大学任教。她是唯一一位因写自传而获得诺贝尔奖的作家,她的大部分作品都由自传,日记或半自传体小说组成的。她试图将自己的生活经历记录下来,梳理社会事实,现已出版15本书,其中有两部被改编为同名电影。
《和盘托出》(1974年)是她的处女作,讲述了20岁的大学生在黑诊所堕胎,烙下精神后遗症的故事。这是一部大胆的自传体小说,记录了婚外性行为、堕胎和一个青涩女孩所面临的痛苦。这是她创作生涯的开山之作,一个大胆的开始。
《按他们说的做,否则就不做》(1977)是安妮-欧诺的第二部小说。小说以作者的家乡为背景,讲述了她15岁时发生的故事。故事发生在安妮从初中升入高中的夏季和秋季,采用意识流风格,反映了少女逐渐的意识觉醒和走向成熟。
冰封的女人》(1981年)叙述了安妮如何从一个少年成长为婚姻中的成熟女性,以及她如何在教师角色和有两个孩子的母亲角色之间挣扎。对模范妻子和母亲形象的传统期望正在扼杀内心深处她真实的自己。
《一个男人的地方》(1983年)描述了安妮-欧诺已故父亲的生活故事。在她获得教师资格两个月后,父亲就去世了。通过她冷酷的观察,该书勾勒出她的父亲是如何从一个被忽视的、几乎没有受过教育的男孩成长为一个强硬而务实的人,对自己的家庭几乎没有感情。父亲有很多被压抑的情感,但在安妮欧诺的笔触下被生动地展示出来。这本书帮助Ernaux赢得了1984年的雷诺奖。
《一个女人的故事》(2003年)是一本从欧诺的视角出发,描写母亲的回忆录。这本书从她母亲患老年痴呆症几年后的死亡开始叙述。欧诺试图客观地描绘出她母亲的真实面目,以及爱恨交织、批评与理解交融的复《杂母女关系。这部感人的回忆录在1998年获得了《洛杉矶时报》图书奖。
《简单的激情》(1991年)一书中,欧诺真实而大胆地描述了她与一名俄罗斯男子两年间的婚外恋情。根据这本自传改编的同名情色电影由丹妮尔-阿比德(Danielle Arbid)执导,被选为2020年戛纳电影节的参展影片。
《外部》(1996年)是跨越安妮-欧诺七年生活的随意《日记。它凄美而富有诗意地展示了当代人在巴黎郊区的生活感受。
《耻辱》(1998年)是一本回忆录,讲述了一场黑暗的家庭冲突。它以这样冷酷无情的话语开始:“1952年6月15日这一天,我父亲企图杀死我母亲"。欧诺有胆量回忆丑陋的家庭往事,她自揭家丑的勇气令人佩服。
《我留在黑暗中》(1999年)详细叙述了欧诺在母亲患老年痴呆症后如何照顾她。它展示了母女之间的爱,女儿在帮助母亲康复失败后的绝望,以及失去母亲的痛苦。作品的语言非常有力,充满了深刻而细腻的情感描述。
《所见之事》(2000年)是一本日记,涵盖了欧诺1993年至1999年七年的生活。它结合了作者的私人生活经历和对世界大事件的历史观察,如戴安娜王妃之死、波斯尼亚的战争罪行法庭以及贫困和艾滋病等社会问题。
《发生》(2000年)忠实地描述了1963年23岁的安妮-欧诺如何突然意识到自己怀孕了,当时非婚怀孕还是一种耻辱,堕胎也是非法的。书中描述了她如何试图用一根编织针来自行堕胎,然后去了一家黑诊所,最后被送进医院的急诊室。这此创伤性的经历险些要了她命。《这本回忆录在2021年被改编为同名电影。
《迷失》(2022年)是安妮-欧诺在与一位年轻的已婚俄罗斯外交官秘密恋爱期间所写的日记。她之前的小说《简单的激情》也是基于这段恋情,但这本日记的写作是未经过滤的、对真实情况的一手记录。
《占有》(2008年)是另一本基于她那段婚外情之后果的半自传小说。采用第一人称视角进行自我暴露,讲述了恋情结束后,她对旧情人新伴侣的嫉妒和念念不忘。
《岁月》(2008年)又是一部个人经历记述,绵延横亘自1941年至2006年的漫长岁月,充满了回忆,甚至还包括对未来的想象。这部作品被认为是她的代表作。该回忆录首次以第三人称来描述自己,对二战后至21世纪初的法国社会提供了生动的写照。它将一个女人的故事与她所处的法国社会的事实描述相结合。《岁月》收获了众多奖项,包括2008年法国学院的弗朗索瓦-莫里亚克奖、2008年玛格丽特-杜拉斯奖、2008年法语奖、2009年Télégramme读者奖,以及2016年Premio Strega Europeo奖。其英文版本由艾莉森-L-斯特雷尔翻译,是第31届法美基金会年度翻译奖的决赛选手。
《一个女孩的故事》(2022年)讲述了她在1958年夏天经历的伤痕累累的爱情故事,当时18岁的欧诺爱上了一个男人。该书描述了她如何臣服于一个霸道的男人,以及后来如何被抛弃并感到失落。
2018年,安妮-欧诺因其所有作品获得了海明威文学奖。而今天,2022年10月6日,她光荣地登顶文学界的珠穆朗玛峰,获得了诺贝尔文学奖。
祝贺安妮! 你是一个大胆犀利,敢于冷眼观察,直面人性复杂,对其进行淋漓揭露的勇者。你将自我的激情,无奈,煎熬,挣扎,各种杂念付诸笔端,于日常中展现惊心动魄,实乃佩服。我定会阅读你所有的回忆录!