Abandoning one's origins and hometown
The life of an exile exiled to another world

Annie Ernaux, a problematic French writer who defines her own world of work as “I have never written fiction that I have not experienced firsthand and I will never write fiction that I have not experienced firsthand,” has created a unique world of work without fabrication or metaphor by observing the relationship between society, history, literature and the individual with a keen sense. In 2011, she became the first living writer to be included in the Gallimard collection with her anthology “Writing Life.”
As the title of the anthology suggests, to talk about her work one must talk about her life.
No, Ernaux's writing is not a comprehensive autobiography looking back on a life in old age, but rather an ongoing autobiography in which the past becomes the writing of the present at each turning point in life, and that writing in turn becomes the seed of the future, defining life.

Annie Ernaux was born on September 1, 1940, in a small town in Normandy, France, the daughter of a small business owner who ran a café and grocery store.
It was a family consisting of a father who had barely managed to move up the social ladder from a poor farmer to a factory worker and then to a self-employed person, a mother who had lived as a strong mother in search of a better life, and their only daughter.
The author, who had to wash himself in the kitchen, endure the vulgar jokes of drunkards, use the toilet in the corner of the yard, and sleep in the cold in the attic, decided to psychologically disconnect from his parents and compensate for his inferiority complex with excellent academic performance when he entered a private school and began comparing the lifestyles of his classmates' parents to his own rough daily life.
Afterwards, she went to college, married a middle-class elite man, and passed the literature professor qualification exam, becoming distant from her parents' world.


The humiliation and alienation experienced by a woman from a poor family as she grew up, fell in love, and married are expressed in free-spirited language in the form of a novel in her early works, such as “The Empty Wardrobe,” “What They Said, or Didn’t Say,” and “The Frozen Woman.”
Afterwards, with the publication of “Seat” in 1984, which won the Prix Renault, the author achieved an important turning point in his writing style.
After his father's death, he tried to write a novel, but gave up halfway through and ended up choosing to calmly describe his true feelings based on facts.
From this point on, Annie Ernaux's writing acquires a unique character that can be readily recognized even by the average reader.
The relatively short length of the text, the space between paragraphs, the first part that immediately grabs the reader's attention, the plain writing style, the self-reflection that strives to record only facts and weighs the certainty of memory, and the section on the genre identity of one's own writing—is what I write truly literature?—are almost all repeated in the previous work.


With sharp writing that rivals clinical dissection
Diagnosing a fatal passion

In 1991, Annie Ernaux published Simple Passion, which deals with her love affair with a younger married foreign man.
Because of the sensational nature of the adultery of a famous writer and literature professor and the realistic nature of the narrative, it caused a great shock among critics and readers at the time of its publication, becoming the best-selling novel of that year.
And six years later, Philippe Villain, who was 33 years younger than her and whom she had become friends with through "A Simple Passion," published "The Embrace," his first work, which was about his love for Annie Ernault, borrowing the narrative style of "A Simple Passion," and became a topic of conversation again.
Annie Ernaux, anticipating this reaction to the work, which opens with the sentence, “This summer I saw a pornographic film on television for the first time,” and features the confession, “Since last September, I have been unable to do anything but wait for a man, hoping that he will call me or come to my house,” writes in the work:


I am not at all ashamed to tell these stories openly.
There will be a considerable time difference between the time this article is written, the time I read it alone, and the time other people read it, and it may never be read by others.
I might die in an accident, or a war or revolution might break out before anyone reads this.
Because of that time difference, I can write this article with confidence and honesty.
(...)
(Therefore, it is wrong to think of people who write about their experiences as exhibitionists.
Exhibitionism is a pathological desire to show oneself to others at the same time.)

"Simple Passion" is an extension of previous works in that it explores the materials and methods of writing, memory and records, and it is an anti-emotional novel that analyzes general and universal passions rather than the passion of the individual author, "I," with a thoroughly objective perspective comparable to clinical dissection.
While writing his published works, Ernaux also wrote his "inner diary," an inner work free from censorship and distortion. The inner diary of "Simple Passion" was published ten years later under the title "Indulgence."
Through this writing style, the author thoroughly objectifies 'I' as both a speaker and a universal individual, as the story itself, and as an object of analysis, and uses this as a means of facing the truth produced by writing.


The futile suffering of separation and loneliness
Write about the inner feelings of those who have suffered

Although he grew up among drunken workers, he became a successful writer who settled into the middle-class elite class and abandoned his family background and hometown.
But after falling in love, I listen to pop music instead of classical music.
For a writer in love, popular music becomes a 'part of life' and a means of 'justifying the way (he) lives.'
She also buys clothes, earrings, stockings, etc. with the hope of always showing a different and cool side of herself to the man she loves.
A man might only give her a five-minute glance, but to her, appearing in front of him in the same outfit feels like 'neglecting to make the encounter with him a kind of perfection.'
I open a women's magazine and read the fortune-telling section first, then stop by a bookstore and read the bestsellers to study.
This attitude cannot be said to be the passion of a specific individual.


"Simple Passion" has enjoyed steady popularity since its first introduction in Korea in 2001.
This time, with the inclusion of the Munhakdongne World Literature Collection, commentary by literary critic and Soongsil University French Literature Professor Lee Jae-ryong has been added, allowing for a deeper understanding of the work and the author's world of works.
Professor Lee Jae-ryong insists on using only the simple terms ‘writer’ and ‘writing’, and explains Annie Ernaux’s ‘Simple Passion’, which opens up the possibility of individual writing that makes established genre distinctions meaningless.


In French, 'passion' means passionate love between a man and a woman, and is translated into Korean as 'passion', but it also refers to the 'suffering' that Jesus experienced on the cross.
To borrow a term from Sartre, whom Annie Ernaux read during her college years, our lives are a 'futile suffering'.
The author would have simply changed the adjective from Sartre's term and named the experience she went through during that period as 'simple suffering.'
(...) Poverty is something that can bring about sympathy and solidarity, but the separation and loneliness that an individual experiences that cannot be confessed are truly useless sufferings.
"Simple Passion," which vividly portrays the inner feelings of those who endured such suffering, cannot be condemned as a break from or betrayal of previous works.


Overseas book reviews

Neat, concise, and cold sentences.
There is no reconciliation, no concession, no psychological analysis.
There are only exact words.
Passion for accuracy.
In her absolute resoluteness, Annie Ernaux is more true to herself than ever before._ Le Monde

A novel like a burn wound.
This work is engraved in your mind and on your skin.
No, Ernaux is saying something that cannot be expressed in words.
In this concise confession, there is a desperate wait that doubts everything except time._ Telerama

What happened? She met a crazy love.
A breathtaking passion, as if your head were submerged in water.
She paints this love as a near-perfect picture, experimental yet restrained.
Reading "Simple Passion" makes me wonder if the sadness of love isn't like a disease.
When first infected, it presents with mild symptoms in childhood, but becomes critical in adulthood._ Liberation

No, Ernaux's tone is unusually concise and unadorned.
She shows but does not explain._ Le Figaro