French author Annie Ernaux delivered a powerful speech at her Nobel conference in Stockholm. She notably warned against “a fallback ideology”.
In her welcoming speech, the writer called for the vigilance of intellectuals in the face of democratic or humanist setbacks in Europe. “ There is in Europe – still masked by the violence of an imperialist war waged by the dictator at the head of Russia – the rise of an ideology of withdrawal and closure, which is spreading and continuously gaining ground in countries of hitherto democratic Europe “, she said at her Nobel conference in Stockholm, before receiving her distinction at the awards gala on Saturday.
And she also traced his journey of emancipation through literature. Annie Ernaux has kept the promise she made to herself 60 years ago, to avenge her race by writing books. ” I proudly and naively thought that writing books, becoming a writer at the end of a line of landless peasants, workers and petty traders, people despised for their manner, their accent, their lack of culture, would be enough to repair the social injustice from birth “, she said, making the young 22-year-old letter student reappear from her words.
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“A signal of justice and hope for all female writers »
Annie Ernaux dedicated her prize to all those who want more freedom, equality and dignity for all humans. And she also proclaimed a feminist word: “ There are in France and all over the world male intellectuals for whom books written by women simply do not exist and never quote them. Recognition of my work by the Nobel jury is a signal of justice and hope for all women writers. “.
A figure of feminism particularly recognized by the jury of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2022. Annie Ernaux was rewarded for ” the courage and clinical acuity with which she discovers the roots, the distances and the collective constraints of personal memory “, explained the jury.
After the splendor and the honors of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the novelist admits that she is still in a hurry to find withdrawal and time to write.