France's Ernaux, known for writing on sexuality & gender disparity, wins Nobel literature prize

Writing, she has argued in the past, is a political act that exposes social inequalities. The academy stated, "And for this end she utilizes language as 'a knife,' as she puts it, to rip away the veils of imagination.

When 2022 #NobelPrize laureate in literature Annie Ernaux writes, the question of dignity or lack of dignity is moot. Literature gives her a haven to write what is impossible to communicate in direct contact with others.

Learn more: https://t.co/oftEXlSlKi pic.twitter.com/6xhBnpilqx — The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 6, 2022

Her first book, "Les Armoires Vides," was published in 1974, but "Les Années," which was published in 2008 and then published in English as "The Years," brought her international acclaim.

"It is her most ambitious project, which has given her an international reputation and a raft of followers and literary disciples," the academy said of that book.

The academy claimed that Ernaux combined the personal and collective memories in "The Years" by replacing "the spontaneous recall of the self with the third person of collective memory." Ernaux, who was raised in a humble Normandy grocery family, talks about class and her struggles to assimilate the customs and values of the French aristocracy while remaining faithful to her working class roots.

"It's a long path that she makes in her life," Swedish Academy member Anders Olsson told Reuters. "She's a courageous woman."