Writing about sexuality and inequality, Annie Ernaux is now among the greatest authors | DW News

French author Annie Ernaux now joins this list of greats as the 2022 laureate, as announced on Thursday by the Swedish Academy.

Ernaux is renowned for her autobiographical prose works that examine "a life marked by strong disparities regarding gender, language and class," according to the Swedish Academy.

For the French memoirist, "writing is a political act, opening our eyes for social inequality. For this purpose she uses language as 'a knife,' as she calls it, to tear apart the veils of imagination," stated Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel committee.

According to the author's own description, the main themes found in her body of work, which spans over four decades, are "the body and sexuality; intimate relationships; social inequality and the experience of changing class through education; time and memory; and the overarching question of how to write these life experiences."

The personal and intimate experiences she writes about "are always understood as shared by others, and reflective of the social, political and cultural context in which they occur," states Ernaux on her website.

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