French · b. 1940
Annie Ernaux won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature for "the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory." The French author developed a form she calls "autofiction"—autobiography with the detachment of sociology. "The Years" traces post-war France through collective memory and brand names, refusing the first-person singular. Ernaux's work makes the personal political without proclamation, finding in one woman's life the shape of an era.