Ernaux’s Literature Nobel no surprise for French Studies professor

Photo by Jeff Renaud - Western French Studies professor Schwerdtner has studied Annie Ernaux's critically acclaimed body of work for many years and thinks her Nobel Prize in Literature was long overdue When Annie Ernaux was announced as the 2022 winner of Nobel Prize in Literature, the 82-year-old French writer from a modest working-class background - the first French woman to win the prize - was reportedly surprised. Karin Schwerdtner was not. A Western professor, Schwerdtner has studied Ernaux's critically acclaimed body of work for many years and thought that this level of recognition was overdue. Though she understands why it may have taken so long. For major literary awards such as the International Man Booker Prize (the most prestigious prize for foreign literature in the UK), or, indeed, the Nobel Prize in Literature, it appears that translation is most often a condition, if not a requirement. Despite her every-growing reputation, it's only been in recent years that some of Ernaux's novels have been made widely available for non-French readers. A belated translation of 2001's Se perdre ("Getting Lost") has just appeared and as the French newspaper Le Monde recently reported, recognition from the general public was achieved (only) during the 2010s, with the English translation of Les Années ("The Years").