Life in Transition

It cannot be denied that misogyny subtly resonates in nearly every facet of our lives, whether in the workplace or at home. For millennia, society has largely been patriarchal, and women have consistently been placed at a disadvantage. Patriarchy has forced women to play second fiddle, a notion inculcated in them from a young age: their roles in society are limited, their fates predetermined, and their lives shaped accordingly. Women are meant to assume the roles of homemakers and childbearers, catering to the whims of their husbands, the default authority in any household. They are expected to navigate life according to conventions established, unsurprisingly, by men. For centuries, women have been relegated to the background. Basic rights—ranging from access to tertiary education and freedom of expression to the right to vote—were withheld from them. Labeled the “lesser” gender, women were constantly corralled by men. Those who failed or refused to conform to societal expectations were ostracized.

Women have historically been oppressed by men. However, with the passage of time came a degree of enlightenment that allowed women to recognize the stark dichotomies between genders. They began to notice the glaring disparities and injustices directed toward them. Slowly but surely, women reclaimed their voices and, by extension, the narrative. With this growing awareness came a call to recognize their basic rights. In the early to mid-nineteenth century, women were permitted to attain collegiate degrees. By the mid-twentieth century, women’s suffrage had become a democratic norm. Gradually, women also became integral figures in boardrooms. However, despite efforts to narrow the gender gap, a glaring dichotomy remains in how the two genders are viewed, understood, and treated.

In literature, women’s voices have also been slowly heard. Like most fields, writing was long dominated by men, and the journey toward recognition was far from easy. For centuries, women obscured their identities by adopting male pseudonyms to circumvent gender bias—particularly during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when publishers and readers expected less from female writers. Society developed a prejudice against women authors, especially when it came to serious subject matter. This bias prompted the renowned Brontë sisters to adopt masculine pseudonyms—Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Yet prejudice against female writers persists even today, as evidenced by the scarcity of female Nobel Laureates in Literature. Of the 120 recipients, only eighteen are women, most of whom were recognized after 1990.

How are we present in the existences of others, their memories, their ways of being, even their acts? There is a staggering imbalance between the influence those two nights with that man have had upon my life, and the nothingness of my presence in his. I do not envy him: I’m the one who is writing.

~ Annie Ernaux, A Girl’s Story

One cannot help but surmise that, for female writers to be lauded with the Nobel Prize in Literature, their body of work must be extraordinarily distinct—perhaps several notches above that of their peers. Consider the case of French writer Annie Ernaux, who was awarded the prize in 2022 for her masterful integration of autobiographical elements into fiction, despite her name having long been floated as a likely recipient. She is also the first French woman to receive the award, even though France has produced approximately fifteen Nobel laureates, making it the most awarded nation. In its citation, the Swedish Academy praised Ernaux for “the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements, and collective restraints of personal memory.” Literary critics often describe her work as occupying a midpoint between fiction and memoir—a masterful blurring of the line between reality and invention.

Through her writing, Ernaux perpetually exposes the underbelly of the past and its impact on the present. This is evident in her 2016 memoir Mémoire de fille, translated into English as A Girl’s Story in 2020. The memoir is triggered by a photograph of a young Annie Ernaux—née Annie Thérèse Blanche Duchesne—taken during her school years. The young Annie, portrayed as a middle-class girl, is referred to simply as “the girl” or “her.” The photograph transports Ernaux, now fifty-eight, back to the summer of 1958, when she was eighteen. It was a formative time. She had recently completed her baccalauréat at a convent school where she had been a star pupil and was preparing to continue her studies at the Lycée Jeanne-d’Arc in Rouen that fall. Despite her academic excellence, young Annie yearned for freedom.

Like most teenagers, she started to experience a period of rebellion, seeking to escape the suffocating grip of her family—particularly her mother, whose protectiveness had become overwhelming. Her mother’s gaze weighed down on the young girl, whose only desire was to experience life. Longing to free herself from familial constraints, Annie ventured into the outside world alone. In her longing to free herself from the crutches of her family, she found herself alone with the outside world. She experimented with staying out late, going to the movies unaccompanied, and drinking with friends. For the first time, she experienced what it meant to feel alive. For a girl with limited exposure beyond her family’s influence, this newfound liberty was both intoxicating and disorienting.

The memoir’s emotional core centers on Annie’s time as an instructor at a summer camp in Orne, Normandy. This experience haunted Ernaux for decades; she only began writing about the events that unfolded during this time in 2003, nearly fifty years later. At the summer camp, Annie lived among peers her own age for the first time, further loosening the chains that bound her to her hometown of Yvetot, and her family. The experiences she gained there broadened her worldview while dismantling long-held beliefs. Annie’s most pivotal experience at the camp was her first encounter with desire, when she became infatuated—and even fell in love—with an older boy, H., a head instructor. Despite her relative inexperience with love and desire, she was “all desire and pride,” ready to embrace romance and passion.

But what is the point of writing if not to unearth things, or even just one thing that cannot be reduced to any kind of psychological or sociological explanation and is not the result of a preconceived idea or demonstration but a narrative: something that emerges from the creases when a story is unfolded, and can help us understand—endure—events that occur and the things that we do?

~ Annie Ernaux, A Girl’s Story

This infatuation became a pivotal moment in Annie’s life, catalyzing the memoir’s narrative and her later reflections. Naïve and innocent, she found herself discovering both the pleasures and complexities of love. It also ignited desires long harbored. However, the initial excitement about love and romance soon gave way to uncomfortable situations. Unexpected sexual advances shattered her romantic illusions, and, standing on the precipice of adulthood, Annie lost her innocence and virginity. Her sexual awakening became a baptism by fire, compounded by the weight of peer pressure. Caught in a situation she was ill-equipped to navigate, Annie found herself in profound emotional turmoil.

A Girl’s Story captures this seminal period with striking clarity. Its impact lingered for decades, even taking Ernaux decades to finally reflect on it. The summer of 1958 marked her coming-of-age, shaping and influencing Ernaux’s identity. While her sexual awakening left an indelible mark that she took with her into adulthood, what was most unsettling was the reaction of those around her. She, seen as a loose young woman, became the easy target of ridicule and harsh judgment from fellow counselors. Yet, interestingly, the “girl of ’58” did not feel shame: “I see nothing from that period that could be described as shame.” Meanwhile, her peers absolved H. of wrongdoing, despite his engagement to be married.

The memoir offers a snapshot of social dynamics among affluent students. Ironically, the same group that dismissed H.’s actions condemned Annie for her feelings. Reflecting on these events, the older Ernaux reaches a moment of clarity, recognizing that the resentment she faced stemmed partly from her inability to assert her perspective. Despite her youth, inexperience, and lapses in judgment, her attitude toward sexuality was more progressive compared to those of her peers. It was also a stark contrast to the conservative society surrounding her. As she refused to conform, she was labeled an outlier. Over time, the young Annie’s view would become more generally accepted. This was a realization that elicited a reflection, hence the memoir.

The summer of 1958 emerges as a defining juncture in Annie’s life. Alongside romantic and physical desire, she grappled with fundamental questions vis-à-vis her own identity and her place in the world. While the experience was not without pain, it was a focal point in the author’s professional and personal development. It was a catalyst that shaped her literary ambitions. It also shaped perceptions of men, relationships, and love. Her understanding of relationships and love was deconstructed and reduced to a deeply ingrained yearning to be desired by men. The memoir also subtly highlights class divisions, contrasting affluent families vacationing on the French Riviera with students working at holiday camps.

People in this world, she imagines, talk endlessly about poetry and literature, the meaning of life and freedom, as in The Age of Reason, Sartre’s novel that she inhabited for all of July, transformed into the character of Ivich. She has no defined self, but “selves” who pass from one book to another.

~ Annie Ernaux, A Girl’s Story

From the present, Ernaux meditates on the raison d’être behind these formative events. Annie’s initial impression of camp life was mixed. Stepping out of her comfort zone, she had to grapple with her own insecurities as she tried to fit in. With an unflinching gaze, she examined them with honesty and restraint. She delved into social and personal circumstances that clouded her logic without being condescending to her younger self. Her youthful innocence contrasts with the broader historical backdrop, marked by Charles de Gaulle’s political resurgence and the introduction of the new franc. Yet, the girls at the camp remained largely insulated from these national shifts and even from the realities of the war, embodying a youthful innocence amid societal change.

Beyond the summer camp, A Girl’s Story traces Annie’s subsequent experiences. Following a string of heartbreaks, Annie moved to London in 1960. It was, for the young Annie, yet a new world. Still, as she was navigating cultural displacement and life in a foreign language, she continued to wrestle with memories that underscore the memoir’s central theme: the enduring grip of the past on the present. The narrative concludes with her return to France and her first attempt at higher education. In the process, Ernaux reflects on her development from an innocent girl to a more self-aware individual. Her experiences at the camp during the summer of 1958 shaped her, but also opened doors of opportunity.

A Girl’s Story is then the intersection of memory, identity, and the dream to become a writer. Ernaux subjects her memory to rigorous scrutiny, offering a provocative exploration of how the past seeps into the present. The memoir captures a pivotal coming-of-age period in the author’s life. What begins as a quest to acquire her independence evolves into a profound journey of self-discovery and sexual awakening. Her camp experience left a deep impression on young Annie, inciting questions about life and identity that she would confront as she moved forward in life. Deceptively slender yet deeply resonant, the memoir reveals writing as a form of therapy—one that confronts self-esteem, identity, and desire. With characteristic poignancy, Ernaux opens the door to healing, reaffirming her status as a master of autofiction.

At this very moment, out in the streets, the open spaces, on the metro, in lecture halls, and inside millions of heads, millions of novels are being written chapter by chapter, erased and revised, and all of them die and a result of becoming, or not becoming reality.

~ Annie Ernaux, A Girl’s Story
Book Specs

Author: Annie Ernaux
Translator (from French) Alison L. Strayer
Publisher:  Seven Stories Press
Publishing Date: 2020 (2016)
Number of Pages: 156
Genre: Memoir

Synopsis

In A Girl’s Story, Annie Ernaux revisits the season fifty years earlier when she found herself overpowered by another’s will and desire. In the summer of 1958, eighteen-year-old Ernaux submits her will to a man’s and then he moves on, leaving her without a “master,” bereft. Now, fifty years later, she finds herself able to obliterate the intervening years and return to consider this young woman that she had long wanted to forget completely. And to discover that here, submerged in shame, humiliation, and betrayal, but also in self-discovery and self-reliance, lies the origin of her writing life.

About the Author

Annie Thérèse Blanche Ernaux, née Duchesne, was born on September 1, 1940, in Lillebonne in Normandy, France. Following the end of the war, her family moved to the nearby Yvetot, where her parents kept a café and grocery shop. Yvetot was also her parents’ birthplace. She attended a private Catholic secondary school. In 1960, she traveled to London, England, where she worked as an au pair. Upon returning to France, he studied at the universities of Rouen and then Bordeaux. Post-university, she qualified as a schoolteacher. In 1971, she earned a higher degree in modern literature. In the early 1970s, Ernaux taught at a lycée in Bonneville, Haute-Savoie, at the college of Évire in Annecy-le-Vieux, then in Pontoise, before joining the National Centre for Distance Education, where she worked for 23 years.

At a young age, Ernaux loved reading, which was further encouraged by her mother. In 1974, Ernaux made her literary debut with the publication of Les Armoires vides (Cleaned Out), an autobiographical novel. She would publish two more autobiographical novels: Ce qu’ils disent ou rien (1977; trans. Do What They Say or Else) and La Femme gelée (1981; trans. A Frozen Woman). From fiction, she then turned her focus on autobiography, with her succeeding works a mix of historical and individual experiences. La Place, La Honte (1983) charts her parents’ social progression. L’Événement (2000; trans. Happening) is an account of her abortion, while Une femme (1988; trans. A Woman’s Story) is a book about her mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and passed away in 1986. Many consider her 2008 historical memoir Les Années (The Years) as her magnum opus. Her latest book, Le jeune homme (The Young Man), was released in 2022.

Ernaux’s works and her body of work have also earned her several accolades. Ce qu’ils disent ou rien was awarded the 1977 Prix d’Honneur, while La Place was awarded the 1984 Prix Renaudot. Les Années was the winner of the 2008  Prix François-Mauriac de la région Aquitaine, the 2008 Marguerite Duras Prize, the 2008 Prix de la langue française, the 2009 Télégramme Readers Prize, and the 2016 Strega European Prize. Its English translation, released in 2019, was nominated for the International Booker Prize. For her body of work, she was awarded the 2008 Prix de la langue française, the 2017 Prix Marguerite Yourcenar, and the 2018 Premio Hemingway per la letteratura. In 2022, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making her the first female French awardee and seventeenth female writer overall. In 2021, she was elected a Royal Society of Literature International Writer.

Ernaux married Philippe Ernaux, with whom she had two sons, Éric (born in 1964) and David (born in 1968). The couple divorced in 1981. She has been a resident of Cergy-Pontoise, in suburban Paris, since the mid-1970s. Cergy-Pontoise University conferred on her a Doctor honoris causa in 2014.