Nobel for writer who blends memory, reflection

{ LITERATURE PRIZE} ANNIE ERNAUX

- Vaiju Naravane

With her obviously dyed chestnut-blonde hair, tailored black dresses, and deeply etched facial creases, Annie Ernaux might, at first glance, pass off for a chic Parisian grandmother. Until she opens her mouth, that is.

The 82-year-old French writer, who has just won the Nobel Prize in literature for the "courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory" is a committed political activist and feminist who makes no bones about where her sympathies lie-squarely to the Left.

"It's a duty to take a political position," she said firmly, referring to her unstinting support for France's far-Left candidate Jean-Luc Melanchon in last April's presidential election.

"I consider the Prize to be a great honour, but also a great responsibility. It means bearing witness. A form of 'rightness', of justice, vis a vis the world," she said.

French President Emmanuel Macron, paying fulsome tribute to Ernaux, described her as "the voice for the freedom of women and those forgotten by the 20th century".

Although her books are essentially autobiographical in that she and her life's experiences are the subject matter, they can in no way be described as confessional or auto fiction. Nor can they be described as essays or memoirs. The word used by French publishers is "récits" or a retelling, a reliving through narration. Her prose is shorn of adornment or writerly flourishes of any sort. Ernaux calls it "flat writing".