El acontecimiento

In 1963, the narrator is a twenty-three-year-old student from a modest background in France who finds herself pregnant at a time when abortion is a crime. She wants to keep studying and to avoid the life that her mother and neighbors lived, so she looks for a way to end the pregnancy. Annie Ernaux describes the lost weeks, doctors who turn her away, and the secret procedure, using a spare style built on her diary and memories. The book is both personal and a record of a time.

For readers interested in women's history, memoir, or Ernaux's autobiographical method, it is a concise, unflinching account. You can read it in an afternoon, but it stays with you.

Deep, inward-looking and contemplative; a moderate read.

Best for readers like The Empathetic Explorer. Which reader are you?