International Authors' Stage: Annie Ernaux (FR) in conversation with Tore Leifer

The prize-winning French writer Annie Ernaux was born in Normandy and stands today as one of France's greatest living writers. She is known for her autobiographical novels, in which she explores themes such as family relationships, memory, sexuality, passion and writing, while always being political and concerned with class and gender.

Central to her authorship is the novel The Years, published in 2008 in France, and in a Danish translation in 2021 by Gads Forlag. The work tells the author's personal life course and simultaneously becomes a great story about France up through the 20th century seen through Ernaux's perspective.

Annie Ernaux was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in the autumn of 2022 "for her courage and clinical acuity, with which she uncovers the roots of personal memory, alienation and collective framework."

The Danish reviewers wrote about The Years:

"... a boundlessly ambitious project which succeeds in every way. (...) The Years is a phenomenal work, completely beyond category." – Jyllands-Posten

"Ernaux's presence in the book is at once ephemeral and enormously generous: it is with her body as a prism that I truly realise the enigmatic relationship between past and future." - Politiken

"... a sensuous, poetic and moving reading experience (...) ...a piece of modern literary history that anyone with an appetite for reading should treat themselves to." – Kristeligt Dagblad

Participants

Annie Ernaux

Annie Ernaux was born in Normandy and is considered one of the most important French voices of her time. Her 20 novels have all been praised by readers and critics alike, and her autobiographical, sociological approach to the literary material is a great source of inspiration for many of France's young writers. She received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2022, and in 2017 the Prix Marguerite-Yourcenar for her overall writing. Within the last few years, she has been rediscovered internationally with a beautiful reception and an audience breakthrough in e.g. USA, Scandinavia and England.

Tore Leifer

Tore Leifer is a radio host on Kulturen (P1), M.Sc., author and co-author of a number of cultural history books, most recently Antikken omkring os, ISOLA, Cocktailtimen and Restless Blood. He is a frequently used interviewer and moderator at Danish literature festivals, has lived in France and is, among other things, member of the advisory committee for the Francophone Ambassadors in Denmark's Literary Prize. He has also made a number of podcasts in French about Danish art and culture for Danmarkshuset's digital platform Le Bicolore in Paris.