Annie Ernaux was born on September 1, 1940, in Lillebonne, France, in the region of Normandy. She grew up in a small town, the daughter of working-class grocers. Her parents sent her to Rouen University, which allowed her to move to a higher social class than her parents occupied. Ernaux graduated with a degree in modern French literature. From 1966 to 1977, she taught French literature at secondary school, in eastern France and outside of Paris. From 1977 to 2000, she was a professor at the Centre National d'Enseignement par Correspondance.

Ernaux published her first novel in 1974. Les armoires vides (translated as Cleaned Out in 1990) introduced her technique of writing about intensely personal issues and experiences. In 1977, she published Ce qu'ils disent ou rien, which has not been translated into English, and four years later, she published La femme gelée (translated as A Frozen Woman in 1995). Although these three works...