SOURCE: Willging, Jennifer. “Annie Ernaux's Shameful Narration.” French Forum 26, no. 1 (winter 2001): 83-103.

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's part to bring a sense of closure to her autobiographical accounts of her adolescence.

In La honte (1997), Annie Ernaux describes a painful childhood experience to which she makes no explicit reference in previous accounts of her youth.¹ In that “écriture plate”² which has been her signature style since 1984, she writes: “Mon père a voulu tuer ma mère un dimanche de juin, au début de l'après-midi” (13). It quickly becomes evident that this “scene,” which Ernaux attempts to narrate in the first part of La honte and to understand throughout the rest of it, left a deep impression on her. My project here is to explore this...