I Will Write to Avenge My People

by Annie Ernaux, Alison L. Strayer (Translator)

'I will write to avenge my people.' It was as a young woman that Annie Ernaux first wrote these words in her diary, giving a name to her purpose in life as a writer. She returns to them in her stirring defence of literature and of political writing in her Nobel Lecture, delivered in Stockholm on 7 December 2022. To write of her own life, she asserts, is to 'shatter the loneliness of experiences endured and repressed'; to mine individual experience is to find collective emancipation. Ernaux's speech is a bold assertion of the capacity of writing to give people a sense of their own worth, and of one writer's commitment to bearing witness to life, its joys and its injustices.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, France, Memoir, Writing, Nobel Prize, French Literature

43 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2023

About the author

The author of some twenty works of fiction and memoir, Annie Ernaux is considered by many to be France’s most important writer. In 2022, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She has also won the Prix Renaudot for A Man's Place and the Marguerite Yourcenar Prize for her body of work. More recently she received the International Strega Prize, the Prix Formentor, the French-American Translation Prize, and the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation for The Years, which was also shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2019. Her other works include Exteriors, A Girl's Story, A Woman's Story, The Possession, Simple Passion, Happening, I Remain in Darkness, Shame, A Frozen Woman, and A Man's Place.

Reviews

[Adina ( catching up..very slowly) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since I already commented to Paula about this tiny book, I thought to write a few words about it. The volume contains two Nobel prize speeches, one for the prize and one for the dinner gala, and a short autobiography with some pictures. The books is suited for Ernaux completists, such as myself, although I am far from achieving that status :)). I bought the Kindle e-book because I had some credits on Kindle, other wise I probably wouldn't have bothered. I believe there are only 20 pages of content, the rest is praise from other writers and various synopsis for Fitzcarraldo recent novels.

I liked her speech. The writers she wants to avenge is the working class she comes from and women in general, who still do not have enough of a voice in literature.

Two paragraphs that stood out for me:

- regarding her life of being married with two children and further away from her dream to write: "I could not read the parable 'Before the Law' without seeing the shape of my won destiny: to die without ever having entered the gate made just for me, the book that only i could write" This words stuck to me since I recently read and discussed the parable together with the Short Story Club. Knowing the story, I thought the parallel to be appropriate.

- About changing the writing style starting with her fourth book, about her father, in order to make the exposure less unbearable : "I adopted a neutral, objective kind of writing, 'flat' in the sense that it contained neither metaphors not signs of emotion. The violence was no longer displayed; it came from the facts themselves and not the writing. Finding the words that contain both reality and the sensation provided by reality would become, and remain to this day, my ongoing concern in writing, no matter what the subject". I can now quote her own words when I struggle to describe her writing.

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his Nobel acceptance speech in 2003, author J.M. Coetzee stated ‘all autobiography is storytelling; all writing is autobiography.’ This truly comes alive in brilliant lucidity in the works of our most recent Nobel laureate, the incredible French writer Annie Ernaux. She explores memoir like a character study, examining memory and her past—whether it be the capturing the essence of her family, the passing of her mother from Alzheimer's, Ernaux’s numerous affairs, or simply chronicling a place and how she moves within it—with the emotional intensity and philosophical insight of a novel. In an era where autofiction has been rather popular and there have been large debates over the idea of “authentic” voices in storytelling storytelling and what that means about demanding an artist defend their own identity for the sake of marketing, the works of Annie Ernaux don’t just blur the line between fiction and autobiography, they make the distinction feel beside the point. She is an author certainly deserving of the Nobel Prize in Literature, for which the Swedish Acadamy awarded her in 2022 ‘for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory,’ and I am thankful they did as she has become a favorite author of mine over the past year. ‘I Will Write to Avenge My People from Seven Stories Press— a press named for the seven authors who committed to publishing their works with the new press, one of which being Annie Ernaux—provides Ernaux’s Nobel lecture along with the opening address, banquet and presentation speeches and gives us a lovely insight into the writer’s vision and beliefs on literature, something she calls ‘a space of emancipation.’

‘How can one reflect on life without also reflecting on writing? Without wondering whether writing reinforces or disrupts the accepted, interiorized representations of beings and things?’

Ernaux tells us that from the moment she was able to read ‘books were my companions, and reading was my natural occupation.’ I always love to know great authors I enjoy and spend much of my interior time with also found solace in the quiet practice of reading or, like Jeanette Winterson talks about, found books to be a refuge from daily life. And while some claim to not, such as Henrik Ibsen claiming he only ever read the Bible or the newspaper, I’ve found the act of reading widely to be a common thread amongst great authors. Such was the advice of another Nobel Laureate for Literature, William Faulkner, who said to ‘ read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master.’ Ernaux lists a few early favorites, saying ‘the suspicion with which they were regarded at my religious school made them even more desirable’ (something that struck me as important to note in an era in the US where book bannings are at a dangerously all-time high) and I was charmed by her mention that she recalls being pleased as a teenager to hear Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel and now she shares that honor with him. An honor, she notes, is not just for her but for all women everywhere in a world where women still fight for ‘legitimacy as producers of written works.’

‘But to what end? Not to tell the story of my life nor free myself of its secrets but to decipher a lived situation, an event, a romantic relationship, and thereby reveal something that only writing can bring into being and perhaps pass on to the consciousness and memories of others.’

Inspired by the Arthur Rimbaud’s cry ‘I am of an inferior race for all eternity,’ Ernaux had written in her diary as a young girl ‘I will write to avenge my people,’ and discusses how she hopes her work has lived up to this promise. Coming from a working class background, she studied ‘in a provincial university with the daughters and sons of the local bourgeoisie,’ and hoped her achievements in literature would be part uplift her class of origin:

‘I proudly and naively believed that writing books, becoming a writer, as the lat in a line of landless laborers, factory workers, and shopkeepers—people despised for their manners, their accent, their lack of education—would be enough to redress the social injustice linked to social class at birth.’

But she also wishes to write to avenge women, to make it known a woman can be just as worthy of artistic greatness as any man. For this reason writing as the “I” in her books is so important ‘as an exploratory tool.’

‘They can only be read in the same way if the “I” of the book becomes transparent, in a sense, and the “I” of the reader comes to occupy it; if this “I,” to put it another way, becomes transpersonal, if singular becomes universal.’

I feel this is what makes Ernaux so infectiously readable as the emotions that strike (she does passion extraordinarily well) feel as if they are coming from within your own heart instead of from the page.

And so three cheers to Annie Ernaux. I love her works and I was really pleased to read her insights, especially that she chooses to not write for an audience but from her experiences. This is a very quick but powerful read, a bite sized joy really, and makes me want to read much more of her ideas on literature. Which I suppose is what all her works are and we are lucky for it

[Helga چـو ایـران نباشد تن من مـباد · Rating 5 out of 5]

J’écrirai pour venger ma race.

I have a special place in my heart for Ernaux and her writings; but especially for her as an individual, as a woman, as someone who has experienced many difficulties and faced many challenges to finally, finally achieve what she set out to become: A Voice for the voiceless.

I could not read the parable ‘Before the Law’ from Kafka’s The Trial without seeing the shape of my own destiny: to die without ever having entered the gate made just for me, the book that only I could write.

An excerpt from Ernaux' Nobel lecture (2022):

"...I do not regard as an individual victory the Nobel prize that has been awarded me. It is neither from pride nor modesty that I see it, in some sense, as a collective victory. I share the pride of it with those who, in one way or another, hope for greater freedom, equality and dignity for all humans, regardless of their sex or gender, the colour of their skin, and their culture; and with those who think of future generations, of safeguarding an Earth where a profit-hungry few make life increasingly unliveable for all populations..."

[Paula Mota · Rating 4 out of 5]

Avenging my people and avenging my sex would, from that time on, be one and the same thing.

Em nome da coerência, reafirmo que não sou apreciadora do estilo despudorado nem do tom monocórdico dos livros de Annie Ernaux, mas todos eles estão à minha disposição no serviço que subscrevo mensalmente e estão constantemente a ser-me sugeridos, pelo que eis chegada a mais recente novidade dela, que consiste mais num panfleto do que propriamente num livro.
É a própria Ernaux que explica as minhas reticências em relação à sua produção autobiográfica.

When the reader was culturally privileged, he maintained the same imposing and condescending outlook on a character in a book as he would in real life. Therefore, originally, it was to elude this kind of gaze which, when directed at my father whose story I was going to tell, would have been unbearable and, I felt, a betrayal, that, starting with my fourth book, I adopted a neutral, objective kind of writing, ‘flat’ in the sense that it contained neither metaphors nor signs of emotion. The violence was no longer displayed; it came from the facts themselves and not the writing.

“I Will Write to Avenge My People” agrega a prelecção aquando da entrega do Prémio Nobel, o discurso do banquete, uma curta biografia e umas quantas fotografias, com o pai, com a mãe e com os filhos.
Da sua breve autobiografia destaco a dificuldade comum a todas as mulheres na situação dela, a de conciliar o trabalho, os filhos e a casa e, no seu caso em particular, ainda encontrar tempo para escrever, algo que começou a fazer muito cedo apesar da rejeição das editoras.

There are men in the world, including the Western intellectual spheres, for whom books written by women simply do not exist; they never cite them. The recognition of my work by the Swedish Academy is a sign of hope for all female writers.

“I Will Write to Avenge My People”, como pequeno manifesto literário e afirmação de classe, é de grande utilidade a quem queira perceber melhor o processo criativo da premiada autora e também saber por que se considera ela uma “desertora social”.

I had to break with ‘writing well’ and beautiful sentences – the very kind I taught my students to write – to root out, display and understand the rift running through me. What came to me spontaneously was the clamour of a language which conveyed anger and derision, even crudeness; a language of excess, insurgent, often used by the humiliated and offended as their only response to the memory of others’ contempt, of shame and shame at feeling shame.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written in Annie Ernaux's diary sixty years ago: ‘I will write to avenge my people, j’écrirai pour venger ma race’. It echoed Rimbaud’s cry: ‘I am of an inferior race for all eternity.’ I was twenty-two, studying literature in a provincial faculty with the daughters and sons of the local bourgeoisie, for the most part. I proudly and naively believed that writing books, becoming a writer, as the last in a line of landless labourers, factory workers and shopkeepers, people despised for their manners, their accent, their lack of education, would be enough to redress the social injustice linked to social class at birth.”

Ernaux writes in spare, unadorned prose. Dull? No, but when i first read her i was less than impressed. Where were the lyrical quotes? But in her fourth book, about her father, Ernaux suddenly realized, she’ll betray her family and her working-class roots if her prose is flowery. She wants to speak for her people, largely left behind by the academy and the literary establishment.

“I had to break with ‘writing well’ and beautiful sentences – the very kind I taught my students to write – to root out, display and understand the rift running through me.” (the rift between her working class roots and her middle class academic aspirations).

“I adopted a neutral, objective kind of writing, ‘flat’ in the sense that it contained neither metaphors nor signs of emotion."

She was initially educated to be a teacher, but she left that work to study literature at university: “By choosing literary studies I elected to remain inside literature, which had become the thing of greatest value, even a way of life that led me to project myself into the novels of Flaubert or Virginia Woolf and literally live them out. Literature was a sort of continent which I unconsciously set in opposition to my social environment. And I conceived of writing as nothing less than the possibility of transfiguring reality.”

“. . .what subdued my desire and my pride. . . was life situations in which the weight of difference between a woman’s existence and that of a man was keenly felt in a society where roles were defined by gender, where contraception was prohibited and termination of pregnancy a crime.”

Writing became “a matter of delving into the unspeakable in repressed memory, and bringing light to bear on how my people lived.”

“And I wanted to describe everything that had happened to my girl’s body; the discovery of pleasure, periods.”

“When the unspeakable is brought to light, it is political.”

The feminist and social activist said she wanted to dedicate her Nobel “to those who, in one way or another, hope for greater freedom, equality and dignity for all humans, regardless of their sex or gender, the colour of their skin, and their culture; and with those who think of future generations, of safeguarding an Earth where a profit-hungry few make life increasingly unliveable for all populations.”

[Henk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ernaux is a treasure and this Nobel prize acceptance speech gives more background to her development as a writer, living in French society
How can one reflect on life without also reflecting on writing? Without wondering whether writing reinforces or disrupts the accepted, interiorized representations of beings and things?

This Fitzcarraldo book (with one of the most amazing titles ever) is super short, and most of the meatiest part can be read for free here: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/lit...
Having said that, the speech gives a good idea of the autobiographical approach used by Annie Ernaux and how she developed as a writer, despite hindrance from class and gender in French society in the 20th century. The political is also commented upon by her explicitly, not just in giving voice to women and capturing the often undocumented experience of the working class, but also tied to struggles against oppressors everywhere, including women in Iran and Ukraine versus Putin.

The short biography at the back has some touching pictures of the author and her parents and children. I Will Write to Avenge My People: The Nobel Lecture is recommended for any short commute as either an introduction to Ernaux or part of a journey to be a completist of her work.

Quotes:
Literature was a sort of continent which I unconsciously set in opposition to my social environment.

In writing, no choice is self-evident. But those who, as immigrants, no longer speak their parents’ language, and those who, as class defectors, no longer have quite the same language, think and express themselves with other words, face additional hurdles.

When the unspeakable is brought to light, it is political.

[od1_40reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading for Ernaux fans, and anyone with a serious interest in current literature - published here are Ernaux’s Nobel lecture and Nobel banquet speech.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Had to read a Ernaux’s Nobel speech before starting Septology Summer.

[Annikky]

Too short to properly fill a book/to rate, but I always find Ernaux interesting. Despite her remarkable popularity, her way of thinking seems to me profoundly untrendy - which only makes her more interesting, of course.

[kociefutro · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I were to be religious, this would be my bible.

[endlessbookclub · Rating 4 out of 5]

ugh she never disappoints

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant introduction to the work and writing of Annie Ernaux, the title alluding to her search for the perfect opening line to her noble prize lecture:

Finding the sentence that will give me the freedom and the firmness to speak without trembling in this place to which you have invited me this evening.

She doesn't have to look far, she says, though the line she is referring to, the title of this talk, is one she wrote in her diary sixty years ago.

j'écrirai pour venger ma race

It was written when she was 22 years old, the daughter of working class parents, studying literature in a faculty of sons and daughter of the local bourgeoise and it was a reference to, or an echo of cry:

'I am of an inferior race for all eternity.'

A young woman, the first of her family to be university educated, her youthful idealism was projected into those words.

I proudly and naively believed that writing books, becoming a writer, as the last in a line of land-less labourers, factory workers and shop keepers, people despised for their manners, their accent, their lack of education, would be enough to redress the social injustice linked to socila class at birth.

Her first attempt at the novel was rejected by multiple publishers, but it was not this that subdued her desire and pride, and seek her to find a new form of expression.

It was life situations in which the weight of difference between a woman's existence and that of a man was keenly felt in a society where roles were defined by gender, where contraception was prohibited and termination of pregnancy a crime.

These situations and circumstances instilled in her a pressing need to move away from the "illusory 'writing about nothing' of my twenties, towards shining light on how her people lived, and to understand the reasons that had caused such distance to her origins.

Like an immigrant now speaking a language not their own, as a class-defector, she too had to find her own language, it wasn't to found in the pages of the esteemed writers she had been studying:

I had to break with 'writing well' and beautiful sentences - the very kind I taught my students to write - to root out, display and understand the rift running through me. What came to me spontaneously was the clamour of a language which conveyed anger and derision, even crudeness; a language of excess, insurgent, often used by the humiliated and offended as their only response to the memory of others' contempt, of shame and shame at feeling shame.

Recognising that when a reader was culturally privileged they would maintain the same imposing and condescending outlook on a character ina book as they would in real life, she sought to elude that kind of gaze and thus was born her trademark style:

I adopted a neutral, objective kind of writing, 'flat' in the sense that it contained neither metaphors nor signs of emotion. The violence was no longer displayed; it came from the facts themselves and not the writing. Finding the words that contain both reality and the sensation provided by reality would become, and remain to this day, my ongoing concern in writing, no matter what the subject.

It's an enrapturing lecture and an excellent introduction and insight into Ernaux's particular and individual style, and wonderful that her volume of work has been recognised and celebrated at this esteemed level.

[cass krug · Rating 4 out of 5]

she explains the things that make me love her writing better than i ever could:

“…starting with my fourth book, I adopted a neutral, objective kind of writing, "flat" in the sense that it contained neither metaphors nor signs of emotion.
The violence was no longer displayed; it came from the facts themselves and not the writing. Finding the words that contain both reality and the sensation provided by reality would become, and remain to this day, my ongoing concern in writing, no matter what the subject.”

“The prerequisite of sensation has for me become both the guide and guarantee of the authenticity of my research. But to what end? Not to tell the story of my life nor free myself of its secrets but to decipher a lived situation, an event, a romantic relationship, and thereby reveal something that only writing can bring into being and perhaps pass on to the consciousness and memories of others. Who could say that love, pain and mourning, shame, are not universal?“

“This commitment through which I pledge myself in writing is supported by the belief, which has become a certainty, that a book can contribute to change in private life, help to shatter the loneliness of experiences endured and repressed, and enable beings to reimagine themselves. When the unspeakable is brought to light, it is political.”

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Een kort boekje over de Nobel Lecture die Ernaux in December 2022 hield in Stockholm. Een soort vogelvlucht Ernaux - waarom ze begon met schrijven, hoe haar leven liep, wat schrijven als vrouw voor haar betekend heeft, over sociale klasse - in zo’n 40 bladzijden.

[xira · Rating 4 out of 5]

who could say that love, pain and mourning, shame, are not universal?

[leti · Rating 4 out of 5]

“when the unspeakable is brought to light, it is political.”

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The prerequisite of sensation has for me become both the guide and guarantee of the authenticity of my research....Who could say that love, pain and mourning, shame, are not universal? Victor Hugo wrote: ‘Not one of us has the honour of living a life that is only his own.’ But as all things are lived inexorably in the individual mode – ‘it is to me this is happening’ – they can only be read in the same way if the ‘I’ of the book becomes transparent, in a sense, and the ‘I’ of the reader comes to occupy it. If this ‘I’, to put it another way, becomes transpersonal."

[nore]

"how can one reflect on life without also reflecting on writing? without wondering whether writing reinforcers or disrupts the accepted, interiorized representations of beings and things? with its violence and derision, did insurgent writing not reflect the attitude of the dominated?"

[Berke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot explain how much I love her. I came back to reading it maybe 3 times to annotate, she truly deserves the prize.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore this woman, so inspiring and her writing will never cease to amaze me.

[Rachel Hitch · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘finding the words that contain both reality and the sensation provided by reality would become, and remain to this day, my ongoing concern in writing’

I read the translation while I listened to her speech in french and this woman is just outstanding. I have loved her work from when I first read ‘a man’s place’ which completely transformed the way I think about writing and made me want to write too.

What I found most compelling here is her explaining her reasons to write: to avenge both her ‘people’ and ‘my sex’. An intersection of class and gender which guided her trajectory through life. her use of ‘i’ captured the sensations of reality from her most authentic perspective, recovers from memory and distortion. Though she acknowledges that we do not live in isolation, her writing conveys HER perspective and, thus, avenges through the act of conveying an inherent importance in her inheritance.

She writes ‘from’ her perspective, over targeting others as an audience, consistently unconcerned with commercial success. in this private ‘transpersonal’ act, her writing was political when shattering loneliness and speaking into existence things that society imbued with shame. She writes for her ancestors who lived short lives and survived day to day so that she could one day write: I have never seen it written that way.

Ernaux once again confirmed to me that books are, at their very best, mirrors.

[ely · Rating 5 out of 5]

actual rating: 5 stars

This is how I conceived my commitment to writing, which does not consist of writing for a category of readers but in writing from my experience as a woman and an immigrant of the interior, and from my longer and longer memory of the years I have lived, and from the present, an endless provider of the images and words of others. This commitment through which I pledge myself in writing is supported by the belief, which has become a certainty, that a book can contribute to change in private life, help to shatter the loneliness of experiences endured and repressed, and enable beings to reimagine themselves. When the unspeakable is brought to light, it is political.

If I look back on the promise made at twenty to avenge my people, I cannot say whether I have carried it out. It was from this promise, and from my forebears—hardworking men and women inured to tasks that caused them to die early—that I received enough strength and anger to have the desire and ambition to give them a place in literature, amid this ensemble of voices that, from very early on, accompanied me, giving me access to other worlds and other ways of being, including that of rebelling against and wanting to change it, in order to inscribe my voice as a woman and a social defector in what still presents itself as a space of emancipation: literature.

ganda :')

[Eilean *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book just started my fascination with Annie Ernaux, she has such a beautiful eloquence to the way she writes and definitely paves the way for modern feminist literature!!

[Malak Souama]

Read this because she's pro Palestine

[gabby · Rating 4 out of 5]

“to decipher the real world by stripping it of the visions and values that language, all languages, carries within it is to upend its established order, upset its hierarchies”

[Gaia Llobera · Rating 4 out of 5]

ai, m'ha agradat molt!! amb poques paraules traça el sentit de la seva veu i posició, i ara em sembla que podré llegir-la amb una perspectiva molt més nodrida <3

[Josh Marks · Rating 3 out of 5]

You should never make the mistake of asking a great writer why she writes. Just let her get on with it.

[sophia (taylor’s version) · Rating 4 out of 5]

i read this as a pdf from the nobel prize website. basically, i had to find a writing (article, essay, speech, etc) to potentially analyze for my english class and i originally wanted to do create dangerously by albert camus but that speech was too long and i couldn’t find a pdf, so i ended choosing this and i loved it!! i’ve been wanting to read this for awhile but i never realized it was available on the nobel prize website

[Annelies · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have I mentioned that I really and truly do love Ernaux. She stand for everything I believe in. Her people are my people is everybody.

[wkdidka alaska · Rating 5 out of 5]

The sentence in which is contained all the emotion and rage of this woman is presented to the reader in the first paragraph of this essay:

'Finding the sentence that will give me the freedom and the firmness to speak without trembling in this place to which you have invited me this evening. To find that sentence, I don't have to look very far. It instantly appears. In all its clarity and violence. Lapidary. Irrefutable. Written in my diary sixty years ago. "I will write to avenge my people, j'écrirai pour venger ma race"

This essay is only a few pages long, yet so long lasting, every word that she has written. A person who uses the wisdom of her language to her power. With everything going on in the world, the only thing powerful, something that is capable of seeping in the hearts of the people - language. Ms. Annie Ernaux has mastered hers.
Some quotes I saved from this short essay:
1.

In bringing to light of the social unspeakable, of those internalized power relations linked to class and/or race, and gender too, felt only by the people who directly experience their impact, the possibility of individual but also collective emancipation emerges. To decipher the real world by stripping it of the visions and values that language, all language, carries within it is to upend its established order, upset its hierarchies.

I meannn, what does even emancipation mean, I learned a new word!
2.

Literature was a sort of continent which i unconsciously set in opposition to my social environment. And I conceived of writing as nothing less than the possibility of transfiguring reality.

3.

I could not read the parable 'Before The Law' from Kafka's The Trial without seeing the shape of my own destiny: to die without ever having entered the gate made just for me, the book that only I could write.

I am afraid, this one is another must read for you all.