Renowned French writer, Annie Ernaux, has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for the year 2022. The prize is worth 10 million Swedish crowns which is equivalent to $900,357.

Ernaux who is one of her country’s most acclaimed authors writes novels about daily life in France as well as non-fiction.

According to the Nobel Committee, Ernaux has written over 20 books, mostly autobiographies and memoirs. The committee said she got the award “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory”.

“Annie Ernaux manifestly believes in the liberating force of writing. Her work is uncompromising and written in plain language, scraped clean.

“And when she with great courage and clinical acuity reveals the agony of the experience of class, describing shame, humiliation, jealousy or inability to see who you are, she has achieved something admirable and enduring,” Anders Olson, Chairman of the Nobel Committee said.

The 82-year old Nobel Laureate’s debut was Les armoires vides, published in 1974 in France and as Cleaned Out in English in 1990. It was her fourth book, La place or A Man’s Place, that was her literary breakthrough.

Her 2008 historical memoir, Les Années (The Years), very well received by French critics, is considered by many to be her best work.

In this book, Ernaux writes about herself in the third person for the first time, providing a vivid look at French society just after the Second World War until the early 2000s.

With this prestigious award, Ernaux becomes the 16th French Nobel laureate. The award last went to France when Patrick Modiano won it in 2014.

Abdulrazaq Gurnah, the Tanzanian-born British novelist, won the literature prize last year.

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