Happening by Annie Ernaux
In 1963, Annie Ernaux, 23 and unattached, realizes she is pregnant. Shame arises in her like a plague: understanding that her pregnancy will mark her and her family as social failures, she knows she cannot keep that child. This is the story, written forty years later, of a trauma Ernaux never overcame. In a France where abortion was illegal, she attempted, in vain, to self-administer the abortion with a knitting needle. Fearful and desperate, she finally located an abortionist, and ends up in a hospital emergency ward where she nearly dies. In Happening, Ernaux sifts through her memories and her journal entries dating from those days. Clearly, cleanly, she gleans the meanings of her experience.
REVIEWS
"Universal, primeval and courageous, Happening is a fiercely dislocating, profoundly relevant work - as much of art as of human experience. It should be compulsory reading."- Catherine Taylor, Financial Times
"Ernaux's work is an attempt at truth. Not a narrative bend on truth, but an "endeavour to revisit every single image". ... Ernaux's work is important. Not just because of her subject matter, but because of the way she hands it over: the subtle contradictions; her dispassionate stoicism, mixed with savagery; her detailed telling, mixed with spare, fragmented text.'- Niamh Donnelly, Irish Times 'Happening is gripping and painfully inevitable to read - like a thriller. I felt close to Annie Duchesne, in her alone-ness, in a way I've rarely felt close to a character in a book. Women will be grateful to Ernaux for her wisdom, concision, and commitment to writing about death and life." -Daisy Hildyard, author of The Second Body
PRODUCT DETAILS
Paperback
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
ISBN: 978-19609809485
Pages: 96