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WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE
Another masterpiece of remembering from Annie Ernaux, the Man Booker International Prize–shortlisted author of The Years.
In A Girl’s Story, Annie Ernaux revisits the season 50 years earlier when she found herself overpowered by another’s will and desire. In the summer of 1958, 18-year-old Ernaux submits her will to a man’s, and then he moves on, leaving her without a “master,” bereft.
Now, 50 years later, she realizes she can obliterate the intervening years and return to consider this young woman that she wanted to forget completely. And to discover that here, submerged in shame, humiliation, and betrayal, but also in self-discovery and self-reliance, lies the origin of her writing life.
Another masterpiece of remembering from Annie Ernaux, the Man Booker International Prize–shortlisted author of The Years.
In A Girl’s Story, Annie Ernaux revisits the season 50 years earlier when she found herself overpowered by another’s will and desire. In the summer of 1958, 18-year-old Ernaux submits her will to a man’s, and then he moves on, leaving her without a “master,” bereft.
Now, 50 years later, she realizes she can obliterate the intervening years and return to consider this young woman that she wanted to forget completely. And to discover that here, submerged in shame, humiliation, and betrayal, but also in self-discovery and self-reliance, lies the origin of her writing life.
Praise for this book
"Ernaux has inherited de Beauvoir's role of chronicler to a generation." - Margaret Drabble
"In this devastating yet deceptively simple work of autofiction, Annie Ernaux retraces the origins of her identity as an artist to the height of the Algerian War, and the loss of her innocence at the cusp of womanhood. Sifting through the wreckage of her memory, she queries its nature: whether we possess it, construct it, or view it like a photograph, or as a form of cinema; whether, long suppressed, it may be resurrected and reconstituted as narrative—and where, in such an act, the author ends and the character of the author begins. 'What is the belief that drives her, if not that memory is a form of knowledge?' she asks. In A Girl’s Story, Ernaux cements her position as a writer of immense depth and grace." - Sarah Gerard
"A Girl's Story is a profound and beautiful examination of the impenetrable wall that time erects between the self we are, and the selves we once were. I know of no other book that so vividly illustrates the frustrations and the temptations of that barrier, and our heartache and longing in trying to breach it. Annie Ernaux is one of my favorite contemporary writers, original and true. Always after reading one of her books, I walk around in her world for months." - Sheila Heti
"Annie Ernaux writes memoir with such generosity and vulnerable power that I find it difficult to separate my own memories from hers long after I’ve finished reading. In A Girl’s Story she detangles an adolescence rife with desire and shame, an era of both internal and external debasement. Ernaux wisely ventures into the gray areas of her memories; she doesn’t attempt to transcend their power, nor to even 'understand' them, but to press them firmly into this diamond of a book." - Catherine Lacey
"Another deeply felt, fearlessly honest exploration of female desire, shame, and intellectual passion from the incomparable Annie Ernaux." - Sigrid Nunez
"In this devastating yet deceptively simple work of autofiction, Annie Ernaux retraces the origins of her identity as an artist to the height of the Algerian War, and the loss of her innocence at the cusp of womanhood. Sifting through the wreckage of her memory, she queries its nature: whether we possess it, construct it, or view it like a photograph, or as a form of cinema; whether, long suppressed, it may be resurrected and reconstituted as narrative—and where, in such an act, the author ends and the character of the author begins. 'What is the belief that drives her, if not that memory is a form of knowledge?' she asks. In A Girl’s Story, Ernaux cements her position as a writer of immense depth and grace." - Sarah Gerard
"A Girl's Story is a profound and beautiful examination of the impenetrable wall that time erects between the self we are, and the selves we once were. I know of no other book that so vividly illustrates the frustrations and the temptations of that barrier, and our heartache and longing in trying to breach it. Annie Ernaux is one of my favorite contemporary writers, original and true. Always after reading one of her books, I walk around in her world for months." - Sheila Heti
"Annie Ernaux writes memoir with such generosity and vulnerable power that I find it difficult to separate my own memories from hers long after I’ve finished reading. In A Girl’s Story she detangles an adolescence rife with desire and shame, an era of both internal and external debasement. Ernaux wisely ventures into the gray areas of her memories; she doesn’t attempt to transcend their power, nor to even 'understand' them, but to press them firmly into this diamond of a book." - Catherine Lacey
"Another deeply felt, fearlessly honest exploration of female desire, shame, and intellectual passion from the incomparable Annie Ernaux." - Sigrid Nunez
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