Annie Ernaux, a French author who has mined her own biography to explore life in France since the 1940s, won the literature prize on Thursday for her work that illuminates murky corners of memory, family, and society.
Sex, abortion, shame, and love are explored in Ernaux's autobiographical books. Her upbringing in the Normandy region of northwest France gave her material.
Ernaux was honored by the Swedish Academy for her writing.
Ernaux is an honest writer who doesn't hesitate to confront the hard truths, according to the chairman of the literature committee.
She writes about things that other people don't write about, for instance her abortion, her jealousy, her experiences as an abandoned lover and so on. He said after the award announcement that it was difficult. These experiences are very simple and striking. The books are short but moving.
The first French literature Laureate since Patrick Modiano is Ernaux. One of France's most-garlanded authors and a prominent feminist voice, she expressed surprise at the award and asked a Swedish journalist if he was sure.
She told the news agency that the phone had been ringing all day but she hadn't answered.
The award was a great honor, Ernaux said.
The term "an ethnologist of herself" was used by Ernaux instead of a writer of fiction.
She has more than 20 books that chronicle her life and her life around her. Sexual encounters, abortion, illness, and the deaths of her parents are presented by them.
The work was often written in plain language.
Ernaux describes her writing style as flat, meaning that she wants a very objective view of the events she is describing.
Ernaux became a writer after working as a teacher. In 1974 she wrote her first book. Before moving to more autobiographical books, she wrote two more autobiographical novels.
She wrote about her relationship with her father in the book that made her name, La Place. It comes to me naturally.
Shame was published in 1997 and Happening was published in 2000
Her book, The Years, was published in 2008 and described French society from the end of World War II to the present day. In The Years, Ernaux wrote in the third person, instead of using her real name. The book was called the first collective autobiography by the author.
A girl's coming of age in the 1950s is the subject of a movie.
European and North American writers have been accused of being too male-dominated by the critics of the literature prize. Abdulrazak Gurnah, a writer from the U.K., won last year's prize.
The focus of the prize should be on literary quality.
The literature prize moved on from years of controversy and scandal thanks to the awards to Gurnah and Louise Glck.
The award was put on hold after sex abuse allegations were made against the Swedish Academy. Peter Handke, who has been accused of being an apologist for Serbian war crimes, received the literature award from the academy.
On Monday, the first day of the week, Swedish scientist Svante Paabo received the medicine prize for discovering the secrets of Neanderthal genes that gave us immunity.
The physicists won the prize together. When separated, tiny particles can retain a connection with each other, which can be used for specialized computing and to protect information.
The chemistry prize was awarded on Wednesday to Americans Carolyn R. Bertozzi and K. Barry Sharpless and a scientist from the Danes.
The economics prize will be announced on Monday.
A cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor will be given out on December 10. The money came from a bequest by the prize's creator.
That's right.
Lawless and Jordans were from London and Berlin, respectively. Naomi Koppel was in London.
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