A Woman's Story »

Born in 1940, Annie Ernaux grew up in Normandy. In 1984, she won the Prix Renaudot for her book La Place. Eight of her novels have been published in America, including A Woman's Story, a NY Times Notable Book, and A Man's Place, a NY Times Notable Book and a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize.

"A stunning, emotional testament...that may move some readers to think of their own mothrs, even in a way they hadn't before."

Annie Ernaux's mother has just died. She is the only child, so it is up to her to make the final arrangements. And it is up to her to remember the proud, vibrant, intense, and difficult woman who once was her mother before age and illness vanquished her. A poignant recollection of a mother's life in France before and after the war, this woman's story can only be known in part. Yet, in this case, that is enough.

An acclaimed bestseller in France, A WOMAN'S STORY is every women's story—a quiet jewel of a memoir, breathtaking and brilliant.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK

Publishers Weekly

For this Prix Renaudot-winning author, childhood was not just a time of life but a cottage industry. A trilogy of books intersect at her youth: the story of Ernaux's father, told in La Place ; her semi-autobiographical first novel, Cleaned Out ; and A Woman's Story . In this work, the woman of the title is the author's mother and the story is a brief, aching requiem for an intense but qualified relationship. Ernaux's mother (she is never named), who was born in a small town in Normandy where she saw the fruition of the ``only ambition which lay within her reach: running a grocery business,'' finally succumbs to Alzheimer's disease. This life's very commonness presents difficulties for her daughter who is both ashamed of her mother and aware of the immense difficulties the woman surmounted to give her daughter something better. ``It was only when my mother . . . became history that I started to feel less alone and out of place in a world ruled by words and ideas, the world where she had wanted me to live.'' (May)