A review by afi_whatafireads
A Woman's Story – WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE by Tanya Leslie, Annie Ernaux

dark emotional sad fast-paced

4.25

This one had gotten me so teary eyed towards the end, I was staring at the wall for a good few minutes.
Read this for the #WomenInTranslation 2024

"Naturally, this isn't a biography, neither it is a novel, maybe a cross between literature, sociology and history. It was only when my mother - born in an oppressed world from which she wanted to escape - became history that I started to feel less alone and out of place in a world ruled by words and ideas, the world where she wanted me to live."

This had been a super short read, but left such an impact that it still makes my heart ache when I think about it. Ernaux has a way of reeling you in, of making you see through a world that is her own, where its a story that is told in the honour of her mother, her girlhood, her youth, the relationship that she has with her, growing through adulthood, and towards the end, how she copes with her dementia and the deteoriariotion of her body from the living world.

The love and hate relationship between a mother and a daughter. The love that you hate that equates sometimes to the grudge that you hold towards her. Ernaux wrote it in a way that she was coming out of grief from her mother's death, and that's when she started to write stories of her mother through her lenses. I loved how in depth it was, and it was like the readers also is peeking through the live of Ernaux's mother. And in the centre of this book, grief and loss can hit someone unexpectedly and it sometimes makes us feel detached from the world. That's what I felt with Ernaux's writing in here. Its ever so present but also felt so far away, as if she's writing this story through a glass and it felt like seeing a movie together with her.

There is a beauty and pain in life, and handling dementia and Alzheimer is no easy feat. It takes a toll not only for the ones in pain, but also to the family that is grieving them - for they are grieving for someone who is lost but is still alive. That, to me, is the worst form of grief. Here but not here. The fleeting moments that sees them as the person they used to be but loss in a state of sorrow of the corruption of the mind.

A beautiful, tragic and heartfelt read. Ernaux is a storyteller indeed and gosh I love her works.

4.25🌟 for this gem I would highly recommend it.

Thank you to Times Reads for the copy! Much appreciated it.