Synopsis
In 2008, with the release of her book The Years, Annie Ernaux was recognized by an almost unanimous press as one of the major writers of our time. For her, each thing, each place or each event corresponds to a period of our life, which we transmit. A life, for the writer, is a unique experience, but also a common place. For her, it is never a question of introspection, nor of a narcissistic approach, but rather of the transmission of a life experience. Each of her books is linked to a place and a theme. This masterful and singular work is also the story of a social tear and the crossing of an era.
A word from Tënk
As she did 40 years earlier with Marguerite Duras in her house in Neauphle-le-Château, Michelle Porte meets Annie Ernaux at her home. And there again, of houses and places of a life, it is question.
From the ruins of the town of Yvetot after the war to the new town of Cergy-Pontoise where she settled in 1977; from the grocery store her parents ran as a child to the house she now lives in: Annie Ernaux speaks of the importance of places, and especially of this house in which she lives and writes, which allows her "a form of immersion" in her writing and in her memory as well.
Memory evokes the family and social origins of the writer and the total reversal that was hers, since, from this family environment, she distanced herself with extreme violence - "to the point of thinking hatred of my parents", she says. This violence is an essential dimension of her writing. Her word restores it here with a raw sensitivity, with strength and fragility.
"You have to be content with memory. It is there where things are, it is not elsewhere."
Fabien David
Programmer at Cinéma
Le Bourguet in Forcalquier
