Author(s): Annie Ernaux; Tanya Leslie (translator)

Biographies | Staff Picks

WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE   "My father tried to kill my mother one Sunday in June, in the early afternoon," begins Shame, the probing story of the 12 year old girl who will become the author herself, and the single traumatic memory that will echo and resonate throughout her life.   With the emotionally rich voice of great fiction and the diamond-sharp analytical eye of a scientist, Annie Ernaux provides a powerful reflection on experience and the power of violent memory to endure through time, to determine the course of a life.

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Reviewed by Dan:

Ernaux begins her book recounting the Sunday in June where her father tried to kill her mother. Working around this event, she chronicles her life in the year it occurred, 1952- from ger schooling with the nuns, home life, and growing up, Ernaux attempts to construct a picture of the shame she felt to be herself. Confronting and honest, this is Ernaux at her best.