Nobel laureate in literature Annie Ernaux denounced “an ideology of withdrawal” which according to her “is spreading and continuously gaining ground in hitherto democratic European countries.”
Nobel laureate in literature Annie Ernaux warned on Wednesday against an “ideology of withdrawal” which she said was spreading in Europe, seeking to exclude the weakest in society and limit women’s rights.
“There is in Europe – still masked by the violence of an imperialist war waged by the dictator at the head of Russia – the rise of an ideology of withdrawal and closure, which is spreading and continuously gaining ground in so far democratic countries in Europe,” she said at her Nobel conference in Stockholm, before receiving her distinction at the awards gala on Saturday.
“Founded on the exclusion of foreigners and immigrants, the abandonment of the economically weak, on the surveillance of women’s bodies, it imposes on me, on me, as on all those for whom the value of a human being is the same, always and everywhere, a duty of vigilance,” she added.
“When the unspeakable comes to light, it’s political”
A figure of feminism, Annie Ernaux was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize for Literature for “the courage and clinical acumen with which she discovers the roots, the distances and the collective constraints of personal memory”, explained the jury.
Her writings, strongly inspired by her personal experiences of class and gender, take a critical look at social structures. The writer also mentioned the protests in Iran which erupted in mid-September after the death of Mahsa Amini, arrested in Tehran by the morality police.
The Nobel laureate explained that she started writing about her personal experiences because “a book can contribute to changing personal life, to breaking the loneliness of things suffered and buried, to thinking of oneself differently”, adding that ” when the unspeakable comes to light, it’s political”.
“We see it today with the revolt of these women who have found the words to overturn male power and have risen up, as in Iran, against its most violent and archaic form”.