The Years

By: Annie Ernaux. First published in 2008, this hybrid memoir traces French society from 1941 to 2006 through Ernaux's own life, written unusually in the third person so that it reads as a "collective autobiography" blending personal recollection with the broader social and political history she lived through. It is widely regarded as Ernaux's masterpiece, winning the Françoise-Mauriac Prize and the Marguerite Duras Prize; the English translation by Alison L. Strayer was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2019.