The Years WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

The Years is a revolution, not only in the art of autobiography but in art itself. Annie Ernauxs book blends memories, dreams, facts and meditations into a unique evocation of the times in which we lived, and live. John Banville, author of The Sea One of the best books you will ever read. Deborah Levy, author of Hot Milk The author of one of the most important uvres in French literature, Annie Ernauxs work is as powerful as it is devastating, as subtle as it is seething. douard Louis, author of The End of Eddy Ravishing and almost oracular with insight, Ernauxs prose performs an extraordinary dance between collective and intimate, big history and private experience. The Years is a philosophical meditation paced as a rollercoaster ride through the decades. How we spend ourselves too quickly, how we reach for meaning but evade it, how to live, how to remember these are Ernauxs themes. I am desperate for more. Kapka Kassabova, author of Border I admire the form she invented, mixing autobiography, history, sociology. The anxious interrogations on her defection, moving as she did from the dominated to the dominant classes. Her loyalty to her people, her fidelity to herself. The progressive depersonalisation of her work, culminating in the disappearance of the I in The Years, a book I must have read three or four times since its publication, even more impressed each time by its precision, its sweep and I cant think of any other word its majesty. One of the few indisputably great books of contemporary literature. Emmanuel Carrre, author of The Kingdom The technique is like nothing Ive ever seen before. She illuminates a person through the culture that poured through her; its about time and being situated in a certain place in history and how time and place make a person. Its incredible. Sheila Heti, author of Pure Colour I find her work extraordinary. Eimear McBride, author of Strange Hotel

Born in 1940, Annie Ernaux grew up in Normandy, studied at Rouen University, and later taught at secondary school. From 1977 to 2000, she was a professor at the Centre National dEnseignement par Correspondance. Her books, in particular A Mans Place and A Womans Story, have become contemporary classics in France. In 2022, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.