Annie Ernaux - Writing the Course of Time

Literary lecturer Lilian Munk Rösing discusses Annie Ernaux's The Years (2008, Danish translation 2021) - a novel that traces the French spirit of the times from 1940 to 2006 through social history, political history, family history, technology, the body, and love.

The narrative flows in one long prose stream, alternating between a collective "we" and a personal "she", densely packed with period-specific expressions, names, titles, and brand names. Decades pass, interrupted only by recurring family dinners and photographs of the book's "she" from baby to grandmother.

The lecture examines how the novel simultaneously portrays France over seven decades and finds a form that can capture the very passage of time itself.

Lilian Munk Rösing is an author, literary lecturer, and critic. Together with her mother Birte Dahlgreen, she has translated The Years and two other Ernaux novels from French. Arranged in collaboration with FOF. Venue: Lille Sal.