Writing, the Other Life: Texts and Art by and about Annie Ernaux

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE: Celebrate Annie Ernaux with this stunning collection of interviews, critical analyses, and 24 unpublished writings offering insight into her life, writing style, thoughts, and influence.

Drawings, photos, handwritten manuscripts, and other visual materials make this a beautiful keepsake for new and longtime fans.

Magisterial in scope and size, Annie Ernaux: Writing, The Other Life was compiled and edited by Pierre-Louis Fort and was first published in France by Éditions de L'Herne in 2022, a few months before she received the Nobel Prize in Literature. The anthology includes twenty-four previously unpublished Ernaux pieces, as well as literary criticism, essays, interviews, diary entries, a song by Jeanne Cherhal, newspaper clippings, a comic strip by Aurélia Aurita, letters from Simone de Beauvoir.

Never before published in English, this beautifully visual collection includes an 8-page color photo insert with images, handwritten manuscript pages, and drawings sprinkled throughout. It is the fruit of collaboration between six celebrated translators and a groundbreaking work of scholarship and rumination.

Author: Annie Ernaux
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Published: 10/27/2026
Pages: 360
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.86lbs
Size: 9.98h x 8.02w x 1.03d
ISBN: 9781644214152


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 10/15/2026

About the Author
PIERRE-LOUIS FORT is a professor at CY Cergy Paris University. He is a specialist in 20th and 21st century French literature, and is also the author of essays including Critique et Littérature (Paris, 2008) and Simone de Beauvoir (Paris, 2016). He edited this book, which was published in 2022 in France as Cahier de L'Herne Annie Ernaux.

The author of some twenty works of fiction and memoir, ANNIE ERNAUX is considered by many to be France's most important writer. In 2022, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She has also won the Prix Renaudot for A Man's Place and the Marguerite Yourcenar Prize for her body of work. More recently she received the International Strega Prize, the Prix Formentor, the French-American Translation Prize, and the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation for The Years, which was also shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize. Her other works include Exteriors, A Girl's Story, A Woman's Story, The Possession, Simple Passion, Happening, I Remain in Darkness, Shame, A Frozen Woman, A Man's Place, and The Young Man.

ROS SCHWARTZ has translated a wide range of Francophone literary fiction, memoirs, nonfiction and literature for children and young adults. In 2009 she was awarded the distinction of Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for her services to literature. SOPHIE LEWIS is a translator and an editor working from French and Portuguese, and her translations have been shortlisted for the Scott Moncrieff and Republic of Consciousness prizes, and longlisted for the International Booker Prize. FRANK WYNNE is an Irish writer and translator and he chaired the jury of the 2022 Booker International. He has won numerous awards, and most recently his translation of The Art of Losing won the 2022 Dublin Literary Award. ALISON L. STRAYER is a Canadian writer and translator. Her work has been shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for Literature and for Translation, the Grand Prix du livre de Montréal, and the Prix littéraire France-Québec. Translator EMMA RAMADAN is based in Providence, Rhode Island, where she co-owns Riffraff Bookstore and Bar. She's the recipient of an NEA fellowship, a Fulbright grant, and the 2018 Albertine Prize. DAN SIMON is founder and publisher of Seven Stories Press. His prior translations from the French include Van Gogh: Self Portraits, with accompanying letters from Vincent to his brother Theo by Pascal Bonafoux, and, with Carol Volk, Post-Impressionists by Guy Cogeval.