Between voice and path: Annie Ernaux as a reader

Author(s)

  • Pierre-Louis Fort Cergy Paris Université

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51777/relief18418

Keywords:

memory, identity, intertextuality, female reader, Annie Ernaux, Simone de Beauvoir, essay

Abstract

Mémoire de fille (2016) is a narrative entirely traversed and even structurally underpinned by the presence of books, key elements in Annie Ernaux's investigation as she metaphorically becomes a reader of herself. The entire narrative can thus be (re)read through the prism of readings, past and future, that play with identity construction and question the (im)permanence of the self. This article examines this dimension by analyzing the way reading is implemented in Mémoire de fille, to show that it is simultaneously a way and a voice. By this we mean reading as a way of writing (scriptural dimension: bringing the investigation to fruition) and as a voice of the self (identity dimension: hearing and (re)finding oneself).

Author Biography

  • Pierre-Louis Fort, Cergy Paris Université

    Pierre-Louis Fort is a university professor at CY Cergy Paris University. His research focuses on 20th and 21st-century French literature. He recently published a book on Simone de Beauvoir at Presses Universitaires de Vincennes (2016) and edited the Cahier de l’Herne dedicated to Annie Ernaux (2022). His essay Les Deuils sans noms. Écritures contemporaines de la perte has just been published by Classiques Garnier in the series 'Théorie de la littérature' (2023)

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Published

2023-12-14

Issue

Vol. 17 No. 2 (2023): Is a woman a reader like any other ?

Section

Thematic Dossier

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Pierre-Louis Fort

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

All articles published in RELIEF appear in Open Access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0). Under this licence, authors retain ownership of the copyright of their article, but they allow its unrestricted use, provided it is properly cited.

How to Cite

“Between voice and path: Annie Ernaux as a reader” (2023) RELIEF - REVUE ÉLECTRONIQUE DE LITTÉRATURE FRANÇAISE, 17(2), pp. 13–22. doi:10.51777/relief18418.