(HNMO) - In October 2022, Annie Ernaux was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature by the Swedish Academy, becoming the first French female writer to win the world's most prestigious literary award.
Recently, 3 of her works were introduced to readers by Nha Nam and the French Institute, revealing the author's deepest memories from childhood to her most intimate secrets, things that not every writer is brave enough to reveal.
In Vietnam, readers have become “acquainted” with Annie Ernaux through two works translated into Vietnamese, “A Place in Life” and “A Girl’s Memory”. But it was only after Annie Ernaux was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for the courage and sharpness with which she explores the origins, discord and limitations of personal memory” that her works became more widely read by Vietnamese readers.
To meet readers' needs, three works, "A Woman", "The Madness" and "Shame", have been published, and the work "The Years" is also being completed for publication.
Female writer Annie Ernaux is known for her autobiographical works written in a “flat”, simple and cold style. As a “self-exploiter”, if Annie Ernaux’s first three works with “Empty Drawers”, “A Place in Life”, “The Years” are considered “autobiographical novels”, then from her fourth work onwards, she created a new genre – social autobiography – reflecting personal life from a sociological perspective.
As with “A Woman,” Annie Ernaux offers a subtle and incisive declaration of love for her deceased mother through a seemingly cold (intentionally) pen about the evolution and duality of a daughter’s feelings for her mother: love, hate, tenderness, guilt, and finally a blood bond with the senile old woman.
Or the book “Shame” begins with a sentence that surprises both in content and cold narrative style: “My father intended to kill my mother early one Sunday afternoon in June”. That is also the source of the shame that the young girl Annie Ernaux feels about her parents, about their profession and living environment, which she can only escape when she finds joy in writing.
Without drawing readers into the ups and downs of life or grand themes, Annie Ernaux only focuses on small, everyday but authentic events through short, clear, unadorned sentences, conveying raw emotions without any embellishment. And she has been awarded many prizes in her writing career: the Renaudot Prize, the French Language Prize, the François Mauriac Prize, the Marguerite Youcenar Prize... and especially the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2022.
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