Happening
WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE
"Happening recounts what it was like to be a young woman whose life changed — and world ominously narrowed — in 1963 with an unwanted pregnancy. . . . It feels urgently of the moment."
--The New York Times
In 1963, Annie Ernaux, 23 and unattached, realizes she is pregnant. Shame arises in her like a plague: Understanding that her pregnancy will mark her and her family as social failures, she knows she cannot keep that child.
This is the story, written forty years later, of a trauma Ernaux never overcame. In a France where abortion was illegal, she attempted, in vain, to self-administer the abortion with a knitting needle. Fearful and desperate, she finally located…
Born in 1940, ANNIE ERNAUX grew up in Normandy, studied at Rouen University, and began teaching high school. From 1977 to 2000, she was a professor at the Centre National d’Enseignement par Correspondance. Her books, in particular A Man’s Place and A Woman’s Story, have become contemporary classics in France. She won the prestigious Prix Renaudot for A Man's Place when it was first published in French in 1984. The English edition was a New York Times Notable Book and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. The English edition of A Woman’s Story was a New York Times Notable Book.
Writing, the Other Life
Annie Ernaux
The Other Girl
Annie Ernaux
The Use of Photography
Annie Ernaux
The Young Man
Annie Ernaux
I Will Write to Avenge My People
Annie Ernaux
Getting Lost
Annie Ernaux
Exteriors
Annie Ernaux
A Girl's Story
Annie Ernaux
Happening
Annie Ernaux
The Years
Annie Ernaux
A Man's Place
Annie Ernaux; translated from the French by Tanya Leslie
The Possession
Annie Ernaux; translated from the French by Anna Moschovakis
A Woman's Story
Annie Ernaux; translated from the French by Tanya Leslie