STOCKHOLM—French author Annie Ernaux won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday for “the courage and clinical acuity” in her largely autobiographical books examining personal memory and social inequality.
In explaining its choice, the Swedish Academy said Ernaux, 82, “consistently and from different angles, examines a life marked by strong disparities regarding gender, language, and class.”
The first French woman to win the literature prize, Ernaux said winning was “a responsibility.”
“I was very surprised … I never thought it would be on my landscape as a writer,” Ernaux told Swedish broadcaster SVT. “It is a great responsibility … to testify, not necessarily in terms of my writing, but to testify with accuracy and justice in relation to the world.”…