Annie Ernaux, the recipient of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature, is a French writer and professor of the subject. Her literary works are mostly autobiographical and have close links with sociology. She got the Nobel Prize for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory.

Early Life, Education and Career:
Annie was born on September 1, 1940, in Lillebonne in Normandy, France. She grew up in Yvetot. She studied at the University of Rouen and the University of Bordeaux. There, she qualified as a school teacher and also earned a higher degree in modern literature (1971). She worked on a thesis project on Pierre de Marivaux (Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux, a French playwright and novelist), which was left unfinished.
Annie Ernaux taught at a lycée (the 2nd and the last stage of secondary education in the French Educational System), at the college of Évire in Annecy-le-Vieux and then in Pontoise. For 23 years she worked in the National Centre for Distance Education.

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Literary Career:
In 1974, Annie wrote her first autobiographical novel Les Armoires vides (Cleaned Out). In 1984, she received the Renaudot Prize for La Place (A Man’s Place).
Very early in her career, her writings became autobiographical and shifted from fiction.
Her works showing her life events :-
1. La Place, La honte – her parents’ social progression.
2. Ce qu’ils disent ou rien – her teenage years.
3. La femme gelée – her marriage.
4. Passion simple – her passionate affair with an Eastern European man.
5. L’événement – her abortion.
6. Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit – Alzheimer’s disease.
7. Une femme – the death of her mother.
8. L’usage de la photo – breast cancer.

Awards and Achievements:
1. 1977 – Prix d’Honneur for Ce qu’ils disent ou rien.
2. 1984 – Prix Renaudot for La Place.
3. 2008 – Prix Marguerite-Duras for Les Années, Prix François-Mauriac for Les Années, and Prix de la langue française for the entirety of her oeuvre.
4. 2014 – Doctor honoris causa of Cergy-Pontoise University.
5. 2016 – Strega European Prize for The Years (translated into Italian as Gli Anni (L’Orma).
6. 2017 – Prix Marguerite Yourcenar, awarded by the Civil Society of Multimedia Authors, for the entirety of her oeuvre.
7. 2018 – Premio Hemingway per la letteratura for the entirety of her oeuvre.
8. 2019 – Prix Formentor, Premio Gregor von Rezzori for Una Donna (Une Femme), and Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize for The Years.
9. 2021 – Elected a Royal Society of Literature International Writer.
10. 2022 – 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature

She is the first French woman and 16th French writer to receive the literature prize.