The Other Girl
WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE
Annie Ernaux’s profound investigation into the life of her mysterious older sister, who died at six, two years before Annie was born.
In the summer of 1950, when Annie Ernaux is ten, she inadvertently learns she had a sister who died at six, two years before her own birth. Having believed she was an only child, she learns that she has replaced another daughter—“the little saint,” “the absent one in every conversation,” who lives on in Annie’s parents’ wordless grief.
Taking the form of a letter to the unknown sister, The Other Girl was published in French in 2011 as part of the Affranchis collection (published by les éditions du Nil), which invited writers to…