{"product_id":"the-years-isbn-9781609807870","title":"The Years","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eWINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne of the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShortlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eConsidered by many to be the iconic French memoirist's defining work and a breakout bestseller when published in France in 2008\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Years\u003c\/i\u003e is a personal narrative of the period 1941 to 2006 told through the lens of memory, impressions past and present—even projections into the future—photos, books, songs, radio, television and decades of advertising, headlines, contrasted with intimate conflicts and writing notes from 6 decades of diaries.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Local dialect, words of the times, slogans, brands and names for the ever-proliferating objects, are given voice here. The voice we recognize as the author's continually dissolves and re-emerges. Ernaux makes the passage of time palpable. Time itself, inexorable, narrates its own course, consigning all other narrators to anonymity. A new kind of autobiography emerges, at once subjective and impersonal, private and collective.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e On its 2008 publication in France, \u003ci\u003eThe Years\u003c\/i\u003e came as a surprise. Though Ernaux had for years been hailed as a beloved, bestselling and award-winning author, \u003ci\u003eThe Years\u003c\/i\u003e was in many ways a departure: both an intimate memoir \"written\" by entire generations, and a story of generations telling a very personal story. Like the generation before hers, the narrator eschews the \"I\" for the \"we\" (or \"they\", or \"one\") as if collective life were inextricably intertwined with a private life that in her parents' generation ceased to exist. She writes of her parents' generation (and could be writing of her own book): \"From a common fund of hunger and fear, everything was told in the \"we\" and impersonal pronouns.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCo-winner of the 2018 French-American Foundation Translation Prize in Nonfiction\u003cbr\u003eWinner of the 2017 Marguerite Yourcenar Prize for her entire body of work\u003cbr\u003eWinner of the 2016 Strega European Prize\u003c\/b\u003e\"Spanning decades, this is an outlier in Ernaux’s oeuvre; unlike her other books, with their tight close-ups on moments in her life, here such intimacies are embedded in the larger sweep of social history. She moves between the chorus of conventional wisdom and the specifics of her own experiences, showing how even an artist with such a singular vision could recognize herself as a creature of her cohort and her culture. Most moving to me is how she begins and ends by listing images she can still recall — a merry-go-round in the park; graffiti in a restroom — that have been inscribed into her memory, yet are ultimately ephemeral.\" \u003cb\u003e—Jennifer Szalai\u003ci\u003e. \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eThe Years\u003c\/i\u003e is an earnest, fearless book, a \u003ci\u003eRemembrance of Things Past\u003c\/i\u003e for our age of media domination and consumerism, for our period of absolute commodity fetishism.\" \u003cb\u003e—Edmund White, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Annie Ernaux is ruthless. I mean that as a compliment. Perhaps no other memoirist – if, in fact, memoir-writing is what Ernaux is up to, which both is and isn’t the case – is so willing to interrogate not only the details of her life but also the slippery question of identity. ... Think of \u003ci\u003eThe Years \u003c\/i\u003e... as memoir in the shape of intervention: 'all the things she has buried as shameful and which are now worthy of retrieval, unfolding, in the light of intelligence.'\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—David L. Ulin,\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The process of reading \u003ci\u003eThe Years\u003c\/i\u003e is similar to a treasure box discovery. ... It is the kind of book you close after reading a few pages, carried away by the bittersweet taste it leaves in your mind. ... Ernaux transforms her life into history and her memories into the collective memory of a generation.” \u003cb\u003e—Azarin Sadegh, \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Annie Ernaux’s \u003ci\u003eThe Years\u003c\/i\u003e, translated by Alison L. Strayer, is ostensibly the author’s autobiography, but if a book can be both sinuous and fragmentary, this one is, circling around the truth, presenting a collage of images, episodes, memories and flights of imagination. The narrative voice moves between the first person plural and the third person. It’s just a glorious novel – think JM Coetzee meets Joan Didion.\" \u003cb\u003e—Alex Preston, \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"... a memoir that is humble and generous, an homage to the great French writers and thinkers of the previous century.\" \u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eBookforum\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The author of one of the most important oeuvres in French literature, Annie Ernaux’s work is as powerful as it is devastating, as subtle as it is seething.\" \u003cb\u003e—Edouard Louis, author of \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe End of Eddy\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"One of the few indisputably great books of contemporary literature.\" \u003cb\u003e—Emmanuel Carrère, author of\u003ci\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Kingdom\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"One of the best books you'll ever read.\" \u003cb\u003e—Deborah Levy, author of\u003ci\u003e \u003ci\u003eHot Milk\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\"Attentive, communal and genuinely new, Annie Ernaux’s \u003ci\u003eThe Years\u003c\/i\u003e is an astonishing achievement.\" \u003cb\u003e—Olivia Laing, author of \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eCrudo\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A book of memory, of a life and world, staggeringly and brilliantly original.\"\u003cb\u003e —Philippe Sands, author of \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eEast West Street\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eThe Years\u003c\/i\u003e is a revolution, not only in the art of autobiography but in art itself. Annie Ernaux's book blends memories, dreams, facts and meditations into a unique evocation of the times in which we lived, and live.\"\u003cb\u003e —John Banville  \u003c\/b\u003eBorn in 1940, ANNIE ERNAUX grew up in Normandy, studied at Rouen University, and later taught high school. From 1977 to 2000, she was a professor at the \u003ci\u003eCentre National d’Enseignement par Correspondance\u003c\/i\u003e. Her books, in particular \u003ci\u003eA Man’s Place\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eA Woman’s Story\u003c\/i\u003e, have become contemporary classics in France. Ernaux won the prestigious \u003ci\u003ePrix Renaudot\u003c\/i\u003e for \u003ci\u003eA Man's Place\u003c\/i\u003ewhen it was first published in French in 1984, and the English edition became a New York Times Notable Book. Other New York Times Notable Books include \u003ci\u003eSimple Passion \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eA Woman's Story, \u003c\/i\u003ewhich was also a \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e Book Prize Finalist. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eErnaux’s most recent work, \u003ci\u003eThe Years\u003c\/i\u003e, has received the Françoise-Mauriac Prize of the French Academy, the Marguerite Duras Prize, the Strega European Prize, the French Language Prize, and the Télégramme Readers Prize. The English edition, translated by Alison L. Strayer, won the 31st Annual French-American Translation Prize for non-fiction and the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation and was shortlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize. Her new book, \u003ci\u003eA Girl's Story, \u003c\/i\u003ewill be out from Seven Stories in 2020.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eALISON STRAYER is a Canadian writer and translator. Her work has won the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, and has been shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, the Governor General's Award for Literature and for Translation, the Grand Prix du livre de Montreal, and the Prix litteraire France-Quebec. She lives in Paris.","brand":"Seven Stories Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300688908517,"sku":"NP9781609807870","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781609807870.jpg?v=1767742358","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-years-isbn-9781609807870","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}