Annie Ernaux Summary

In the following review, Jenkins regards A Frozen Woman as a “disquieting book,” contending that “what ails Ernaux may be the ennui of privilege, the affliction of the upwardly mo... Read more

In the following essay, Johnson argues that Ernaux's narrative style is a projection of her personal identity and comments that, throughout her oeuvre, “Ernaux traces the coming into bei... Read more

In the following review, Miller compares Shame with Anne Roiphe's 1185 Park Avenue, asserting that the works are connected by “scenes of emotional soil that stain memory, leaving a resid... Read more

In the following essay, Day explores the parallels between “Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit” and La honte, focusing on the role of the mother-daughter relationship in Ernaux's wo... Read more

In the following review, Genova compliments Ernaux's attempts to present a literary examination of an emotionally-troubling incident in L'événement. A new book by Annie ... Read more

In the following essay, Willging examines the recurring authorial voice in Ernaux's works, arguing that the author's surprising admissions in La honte represent an attempt on Ernaux�... Read more

In the following review, Dallas compares Se perdre with Ernaux's earlier work Passion simple, asserting that Passion simple presents a more engaging blend of “fact and fiction.” ... Read more

In the following review, Abramson explores the role of truth in Se perdre and comments that the work investigates “the relationship between experience and its representation in writing.”... Read more

In the following essay, Miller views Happening as both an account of Ernaux's illegal abortion and also a “meditation on the nature of memory.” It's hard to forget your ... Read more

In the following interview, Ernaux discusses her personal history, her writing career, and the inspirations behind Exteriors. All writers draw on their lives in their work, but few subject their pa... Read more

In the following essay, Kritzman evaluates Ernaux's treatment of shame in La honte, noting how effectively the author portrays the emotion and its fragmenting effect on self-identity. Annie ... Read more

In the following review, Buckeye applauds Ernaux's unflinching commitment to literary self-examination in Shame. Each book of Annie Ernaux's is the same book, each an effort to explai... Read more

In the following essay, Cottille-Foley maintains that the motif of abortion in Les armoires vides “functions as a powerful expression of the protagonist's social alienation.” C... Read more

Seymour is an English novelist, biographer, editor, and journalist. In the following, she favorably reviews A Man's Place, lauding it as an "exorcism of remembrance" devoid of art... Read more

Levine is an American journalist and nonfiction writer. In the following excerpt, she lauds Ernaux's focus on language, class, and familial relationships in A Man's Place. The class m... Read more

Haber is a teacher of philosophy and women's studies. In the following review, she discusses Cleaned Out as a book about the "culturally disenfranchised." Annie Ernaux's... Read more

James reviews films for The New York Times. In the following, she praises Ernaux's examination of obsession and emotion in Simple Passion, but laments her use of and focus on self-conscious lan... Read more

In the review below, the critic summarizes the plot of A Frozen Woman. French writer Ernaux (Simple Passion, 1993, etc.) continues her thinly disguised fictional autobiography [with A Frozen Woman]... Read more

In the following excerpt, which was taken from the translator's afterword to the English-language version of Les armoires vides, Sanders provides a thematic and stylistic analysis of Cleaned Ou... Read more

In the following favorable assessment, Caldwell offers a thematic discussion of Cleaned Out, noting Ernaux's emphasis on loss and alienation. In the loneliness of her dorm room, a university... Read more

In the review below, Danto discusses thematic aspects of A Woman's Story, lauding the volume's originality and tender portrait of Ernaux's mother. In her 1964 novella, A Very E... Read more

In the following, Shoaf offers praise for A Woman's Story, classifying the volume as a "fictional memoir." Though little known in the U.S., the fiction of Annie Ernaux frequent... Read more