Une femme

Annie Ernaux writes about her mother, a former factory worker who became a shopkeeper in Normandy and who died after years of Alzheimer's disease in a nursing home. In short, dry sentences she recounts the mother's rural childhood, her ambition for her daughter, the class gap between them that education opened, and the mother's slow decline. Ernaux sets aside lyricism and describes facts, gestures, and words, which she calls a form of "flat writing."

It suits readers who like autobiographical writing about class, mothers and daughters, and illness. At under a hundred pages, it is a spare, clear book for those who want to see how Ernaux builds literature out of plain material.

Deep, inward-looking and contemplative; an easy read.

Best for readers like The Mindful Reader. Which reader are you?