Why read L’évenément?

Book cover of L’évenément

Book description

"Depuis des années, je tourne autour de cet événement de ma vie. Lire dans un roman le récit d'un avortement me plonge dans un saisissement sans images ni pensées, comme si les mots se changeaient instantanément en sensation violente. De la même façon entendre par hasard La javanaise, J'ai la…

Explore

Topics

Genres

Coming soon!

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked L’évenément as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Madison Smartt Bell

Author

I started reading Annie Ernaux because of her recent Nobel Prize and because her translations (although I’m reading her in French) are published by a friend of mine at Seven Stories Press.

This book is typical of her short novels (which would qualify as autofiction in current terminology) in circling a topic ever more tightly until it yields the essence of its meaning. Here the event is an (illegal) abortion she had in 1963; no detail is spared, however grisly, and yet the whole of the story has a transcendent quality (although reading it now has a particular resonance, with…

From Madison's 3 favorite reads in 2023.