“I believe I am writing about my mother because it is my turn to bring her into the world,” Annie Ernaux tells us in A Woman’s Story – published in English for the first time by Fitzcarraldo Editions, translated by Tanya Leslie from the 1988 French original.

The Nobel Prize winner starts her story with a moment of her mother’s death. After taking a reader through the initial process that follows the passing of a family member – the dealings with remaining possessions, the choice of the final outfit and the coffin (WI settled for oak because it has been her favourite tree and because she had always wanted to know whether the furniture she bought was made of oak”), Ernaux returns to the beginning of her mother’s life. 

What transpires is a portrait of a woman across a lifetime, with all her struggles and celebrations, but also a portrait of a tumultuous and singular relationship between a mother and a daughter. Both are equally important here, and Ernaux manages to strike a great balance between writing about herself and the woman who happened to become her mother. 

The writing itself in A Woman’s Story is truly exquisite. Annie Ernaux is a master of the form: her crisp sentences and plain style manage to convey the story so clearly, leaving the reader in no doubt of its genuineness. At the same time, this purity of language transmutes the most difficult emotions with highly effective results.