Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Writing Age: Annie Ernaux's Les annees

2011; Oxford University Press; Volume: 47; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/fmls/cqq080

1471-6860

Shirley Jordan,

Aging, Elder Care, and Social Issues

A pioneering writer of self-narrative since the 1970s, French author Annie Ernaux has systematically used her own life as the material for her books, turning an objective, auto-ethnographic eye on her intimate experiences and writing ‘transpersonally’ about subjects such as education and class-migration, marriage, abortion, sexual desire, jealousy and bereavement. In her most recent publications, the phototext L'usage de la photo (2005) and the ambitious total autobiography Les années (2008), the author has sought innovative forms through which to investigate and expose her own experiences of illness and ageing. This article analyses Ernaux's powerfully-articulated perceptions of what it means to grow old, with a particular focus on Les années (2008).