Annie Ernaux strana 2 z 2

Roky sa považujú za jedno z ikonických diel francúzskej memoárovej prózy. Text je osobným rozprávaním o období medzi rokmi 1941 až 2006 prostredníctvom pamäti, minulých a súčasných dojmov, ba dokonca aj predstáv budúcnosti: fotografie, knihy, skladby, rádio, televízia a desaťročia reklamy či titulkov z tlače v kontraste s intímnymi konfliktmi a denníkovými záznamami. Prehovárajú tu dialekty, slová spojené s danou dobou, slogany, značky a názvy množiacich sa predmetov. Autorkin hlas sa stráca a opätovne vynára, plynutie času sa stáva hmatateľným a čas si určuje smerovanie rozprávania, z ktorého vzniká nová autobiografia - subjektívna a neosobná, súkromná a kolektívna zároveň.

Considered by many to be the iconic French memoirist's defining work, The Years is a narrative of the period 1941 to 2006 told through the lens of memory, impressions past and present, cultural habits, language, photos, books, songs, radio, television, advertising and news headlines. Annie Ernaux invents a form that is subjective and impersonal, private and communal, and a new genre - the collective autobiography - in order to capture the passing of time. At the confluence of autofiction and sociology, The Years is 'a Remembrance of Things Past for our age of media domination and consumerism' (New York Times), a monumental account of twentieth-century French history as refracted through the life of one woman.

In 1963, Annie Ernaux, 23 and unattached, realizes she is pregnant. Shame arises in her like a plague: understanding that her pregnancy will mark her and her family as social failures, she knows she cannot keep that child. This is the story, written forty years later, of a trauma Ernaux never overcame. In a France where abortion was illegal, she attempted, in vain, to self-administer the abortion with a knitting needle. Fearful and desperate, she finally located an abortionist, and ends up in a hospital emergency ward where she nearly dies. In Happening, Ernaux sifts through her memories and her journal entries dating from those days. Clearly, cleanly, she gleans the meanings of her experience.