French novelist Annie Ernaux, whose deceptively straightforward works are noted for drawing on personal experience of class and gender, was named the winner of the Nobel Literature Prize on Thursday, according to the committee.
The panel commended Ms. Ernaux, 82, "for the boldness and clinical clarity with which she reveals the roots, estrangements, and collective constraints of personal memory."
Following the news, Ms. Ernaux was interviewed on Swedish television where she described it as both "a very tremendous honour" and "a great responsibility."One of the most nuanced, perceptive windows into the social life of contemporary France may be found in her more than 20 books, many of which have been required reading in French classrooms for decades.
The crystallised writing of Ms. Ernaux has mostly revealed her personal journey from a working-class girl to a member of the literary elite while critically examining societal norms and her own nuanced emotions.
Her legacy is to provide an alternative to the "unconditional admiration for the attractive phrase," or as she puts it, to offer "grit in the French literary oyster."
The Swedish Academy stated that Ernaux "consistently and from various perspectives investigates a life characterised by substantial differences regarding gender, language, and class."
It states that "Her work is uncompromising and written in simple, scraped-clean language."