French woman writer Anne Hernault won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature, with her words saying that she "exposes roots, alienation and collective limitations through personal memory with courage and scalpel-like precision". Elno published his first work "Empty Cabinet" in 1974 and has published more than 20 works so far. Elnor's writing is concise, with little use of metaphors, and the language is clear and powerful. Her works are mostly based on personal experiences, using a sociological perspective to examine individual experiences, giving individual experiences a collective meaning, creating a new literary genre different from autobiographical novels and self-narration. Elno believes she wrote not an autobiography, but an "auto-socio-biographie." Elnor's work reflects the changing times and has a historical pursuit in her literary creation. This pursuit is embodied on the one hand in reflecting the individual in the big history through the narration of personal experience; On the other hand, it is reflected in the description of the era through material details, and the memories of the next generation.
Elno's former home in Iwoto (Photo / Luan Yingxin)
"People think I'm a literate bourgeoisie"
Born in 1940 in Lillebonne, Normandy, France, Elno, was the daughter of Blanche Duménil and Alphonse Duchesne. Erno was born to Annie Duchesne, her husband's surname after her marriage to Philippe Ernaux in 1964. Since the publication of her first work at Gallima Press in 1974, her signature has been Anne Elnor. Elno has always published under his real name, never under a pseudonym.
Elnor's parents run a grocery coffee shop in Lillebonne. After the end of World War II in 1945, they returned to their hometown of Yvetot, a small Normandy town, to continue running a grocery coffee shop. Elnor's mother was a very strong woman, she was not tall, she was strong, and she kept the shop in good order. She loves reading, values knowledge, values education, and is a devout Catholic. She disciplined Erno very strictly, and even beat Elnor. Remembering her mother, Elno said: "She was very violent at times. Her father did not have traditional masculine traits, he was gentle and loved to play with children. Elnold considers his parents to be very atypical, contrary to traditional male and female gender roles. In 1946, Elnaud enrolled at the St. Michel School, a private Catholic school close to her home, a 10-minute walk away. Elno attended the school until the summer of 1958. In the autumn of 1958, Elnaud went to the Joan of Arc Lycée Rouen to attend a philosophy class (equivalent to "senior year" in the Chinese context), living in a girls' dormitory managed by the nuns. In 1959, she passed her baccalaureate and was admitted to the École normale d'Institutrices de Rouen. But she soon discovered that this was not the path she wanted to take, and dropped out of school in February 1960. She went to Finchley, a suburb of London, to work as an "au pair," working for room and board.
Erno's private school in Ivoto, St. Michel School (Photo / Luan Yingxin)
In the autumn of 1960, Elnaud entered the Faculty of Arts of the University of Rouen. In 1963, Elnaud received his undergraduate degree in modern literature. After graduating, Elno began preparing for the teacher qualification exam. There are two types of teacher qualification examinations in France, the first is the secondary school teacher qualification certificate (Capes, certificat d'aptitude au professor at du second degré), and the second is the more difficult and highly selective national teacher qualification certificate (agrégation). Elno prepared for both exams and began taking classes and preparing for them in 1964. In 1967, Elno obtained the secondary school teacher qualification certificate, and in 1971, he obtained the national teacher qualification certificate, specializing in modern literature. At this point, Elnaud achieved upward social mobility through education. Outside of her studies, Elnor's marriage further cemented her class transition. She met Philip Elnaud in 1963 and married in 1964, giving birth to her first son in the same year and her second son in 1968.
From the daughter of a grocery coffee shop owner in a small Normandy town to a literature teacher, Elnor's life has changed dramatically. The transfuge de classe experience did not bring pleasure to Elnor, but to pain. The source of her pain was that she was culturally far removed from her parents. Elnor's parents kept telling her, "You'll be better than us later." One of the paradoxes, she finds is that parents "want us to do great things, but they want us to be the same as when we were kids." In her 2003 dialogue with the French writer Frédéric-Yves Jeannet, L'écriture comme un couteau (Writing is a Knife), she recalled: "My most guilty period was the first years when I got married, when I left my class completely and went to live in Haute-Savoie, where I became a teacher and people thought I was a literate bourgeoisie. That was shortly before 1968. I don't like myself, I don't like my life. My father just died. At the secondary school in Beauneville, I clearly saw the differences between students, who used different words when they spoke, had different economic conditions, had different grades, and of course the grades were clearly related to their social class. ”
Sociology as an analytical tool
Elno went from side to side, she left the so-called "plebeian class" and joined the bourgeoisie; She ceased to be a student and became a teacher. While switching perspectives, Elnold began to read sociological works. The sociologist who most influenced Elno was the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. "Many books that are not considered literary have literary value to me, such as the books of Michel Foucault and Bourdieu. I was blown away, I felt that my mind was open and my horizons were broadened, and for me this is literature. In 1972, reading Bourdieu's Heirs: Students and Culture (1964) and Reproduction: Theoretical Elements of the Educational System (1970), Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron realized how schools as institutions systematically exacerbated social inequality. Sociology gave Elnaud an analytical tool to re-examine past experiences. Reading Bourdieu gave Elno a sense of legitimacy in her writing, and it was through education that she made the class leap. She began to reflect on her cross-class experiences and the violence in them, "I write to avenge people like me" (J'écrirai pour venger ma race), and began to write. After the publication of "The Empty Cabinet" in 1974, Elno appeared on the TV show "Des auteurs face à leurs lectrices" (Writer Facing Reader), and some viewers questioned: How could the novel's protagonist be so sober? Erno replied: People only experience things when they are young, and they don't understand what they have experienced, and it is the subsequent education that makes people think about what they have experienced. She argues that it is difficult for a person born into the civilian class to enter another class because of the gulf between the different classes, which is reflected in discourse, mannerism and culture. "It's not her parents' fault, it's the whole society," she noted. From the beginning of his literary career, Elnaud already had a sociological perspective.
Although Elno took a sociology course at the University of Rouen from 1963 to 1964 and studied Bourdieu and Paslon in 1972, Elno did not read sociology for some time thereafter. Elnaud returned to sociological reading in 1980, when there was a lot of media talk about Distinction (1979), so Elnaud read the book. In "Distinction", Bourdieu discusses the relationship between cultural taste, living habits and other details and social class, and in this book Bourdieu proposes the concept of "habitus" (also translated as "habitus"). The book gave Elno a new analytical perspective, and she began to examine the differences in "habits" between her family, especially her parents and classmates in private Catholic schools, and her husband. When Bourdieu died in 2002, Elnaud wrote in his diary: "This is the first time I have felt so sad about the death of an intellectual or writer. She felt she should write an article about it. On 5 February 2002, Le Monde carried an article on Elno's nostalgia for Bourdieu. In this article, Erno emphasizes that Bourdieu made her realize the importance of words. Words such as "lowly people" and "high class" make hierarchical relations appear "tactful and natural", and the words "ruled" and "ruled" expose the essence of social relations.
The concept of "domination" was heavily influenced by Elnor's writing, with La Femme gelée (1981) about his own experiences trapped in marriage and parenting, La Place (1983) about his father's life, Une femme (1987) about motherhood, and La Honte (1997) about violence between parents. Through all four works, the reader can clearly see the influence of the sociological perspective on Elnor, who depicts domination social and domination masculine. The concept of "domination" runs through Elnor's literary career, with 2016's Mémoire de fille (Memories of a Girl) about young women's acquiescence to male domination, and in 2022's Le Jeune Homme (Young Men), Elnaud writes bluntly: "I am in a dominant position, I use the weapon of domination." Having experienced such domination in intimate relationships in the past, I know how vulnerable people can be in such situations. ”
"Plain Writing": Style Choices under the Influence of Sociology
Reading Bourdieu also had a huge impact on the way Elnort wrote. "If I hadn't suffered this shock, I probably wouldn't have written this way, or I probably wouldn't have written about these subjects." Bourdieu made Elno realize that different words conveyed very different effects, and she began to think about her experiences and writing in terms of word usage. "My education didn't match my social class." She felt ashamed and humiliated in a private school where she already felt the financial and cultural differences among students. The difference in cultural capital is also reflected in language, and Elno realizes that her parents' words and what she learned in school are not the same as one language. In a June 2018 interview with Radio France Music, Elnault said she felt like she was speaking two languages, one popular and the other legal. She felt that Beauvoir did not feel like she used another language, and that she wrote in a language that she had learned naturally in her family. This state between two sets of discourses and two worlds influenced Elnor's approach to literature and the way she wrote. She first realized that the bourgeoisie said that she used to be a "lowly person", which was very despising. Reflecting on her writing, she realized that "The Empty Cabinet" was written from a top-down perspective, writing about the cultural differences and cultural conflicts experienced between school and family, "my writing is serious violence".
"In 1982, I thought hard for almost half a year, I was a narrator born in the civilian class. As Jean Genet said, the language I write in is the 'language of the enemy', and my ability to write is 'stolen' from the ruler. In 1983, Location was published, and Elnold used a different language style than her previous three books, using simple, straightforward words, rarely using metaphors, and describing truthfully. Elnor's shift in style is self-conscious, and at the beginning of " The Location " she calls this new style " écriture plate " . It is from this book that the style of writing that comes to mind when people think of Elno today was formed. Elno believes that words should be written down truthfully, and that words and reality should be transcribed. She believes that the discourses from the common people deserve to be recorded as they are, and that there is social reality in these discourses. The choice of this style of writing is a politically motivated project, and Elno hopes to make the experience of a specific social class and the experience of women known through plain writing. This style subverts the traditional perception that only American literature is literature. "Plain writing" is not only an aesthetic choice, but also a choice based on ethics. Elnor's choice of plain language is to make her books accessible to people who may not normally read literature, especially the social classes she describes.
External writing from an ethnographic perspective
Elnor's subversion of American literature is reflected not only in the style but also in the subject matter. In addition to writing about experiences and emotional lives across classes, Elnaud also writes about everyday life. In 1975, Elno's husband moved to Cergy, a new city under construction in the northwestern suburbs of Paris. In 1977, Elno moved into a single-family house surrounded by pine trees on one side and overlooking the Cergy-Neustadt pond on the other. She has lived here ever since. The isolation is reminiscent of another Nobel Prize winner in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, Peter Handke, who lives in Chaville on the forest edge of Meudon, and enjoys writing and walking in the forest. Unlike Handke, Elnor took the initiative to go out, observe the people and things around her, and write down her observations.
The new city of Sergi in the northwestern suburbs of Paris (Photo / Luan Yingxin)
Ile-de-France Regional Express Line A Interchange (Photo / Luan Yingxin)
Contrary to the path of describing his inner emotions in Passion simple and Se perdre, Elnaud began writing Journal du dehors (External Diary) at the same time. This "External Diary" is her ethnography for everyday life. Contrary to the traditional view that literature should depict beauty and artistry, Elnaud introduced new themes to literature. "What I want to destroy is literature, otherwise I wouldn't have written!" She observes and listens to people's conversations within the trajectory of her daily life. Near her house, she writes about the Three Springs shopping center next to Sergi Station, the Auchan supermarket, the butcher shop, the barbershop, the tobacco shop ... On the move, she writes about the Île-de-France Regional Express A line (RER A) connecting Serge to Paris and the Paris metro, about passengers, entertainers, beggars, vagabonds... In her writing, these people have both looks and voices. "I was a child who grew up in a ruled class that I experienced and continue to experience class struggle very early. Bourdieu once expressed 'excessive painful memory,' which refers to memories that cannot be erased. I always have this memory. It is this memory that gives me the perspective of looking at people in the Diary of the Outside and La Vie extérieure (Life Outside). ”
La Vie extérieure
Journal du dehors
Elnaud captures the details of everyday life almost through the eyes of an anthropologist, re-examining the social class from which she came from on the outside. In his writing journal, L'Atelier noir (Black Studio), Elno wrote on April 8, 1982: "I think about 'ethnography' today, which I think is both objective and analytical. "She realized to keep her distance and have an outside perspective, but at the same time she should be honest in her writing. External Diary, published in 1993, documents her observations from the mid-80s to the early 90s. External Life was published in 2000. This external observation series continued until Regarde les lumières mon amour, published in 2014. In this series, "I" rarely appears, but "I" is everywhere because these observations are done through Elnor's eyes. Elnor's gaze was gentle and equal, and she didn't feel superior. The French historian Jacques Le Goff wrote in an article in the newspaper Libération, "The subway makes me unaccustomed to it, as if I am somewhere else." Elno retorted sharply: "Is it not customary for people who take the subway every day to go to the Collège de France and feel as if they are somewhere else?" We have no way of knowing. ”
Regarde les lumières mon amour (Regarde les lumières mon amour)
"The Black Studio" (L'Atelier noir)
Materiality: Between Sociology and History
Elnor, while inspired by sociology, was also influenced by history. Elnor, who began thinking about the relationship between literature and history in the early '80s, has been thinking about the relationship between literature and history since the early '80s, and she has also read historical works, including books by French historian Georges Duby and Pierre Nora's Field of Memory. Elnort believes that "writing is to preserve time" and that recording an era is "preserving an era".
In 1983, Elnold wrote in his writing journal: "Is it possible to write a story of 'them' in the third person? Like Perec's Things. Elno had a "big plan to encompass her whole life" and she wanted to write "the story of a woman in big history" (histoire de femme dans l'Histoire). Elnault is acutely aware that personal experience is inseparable from historical processes. "Each individual is crossed by the following factors: his or her own situation, the history of the society in which he lives, the big history, the process, the environment, the family history, the history of sexual experience, and the romantic imagination." She wanted to write a historical book, and her goal was to "reach the historical truth about an era." She knows that in order to realize this plan, "there is always a need to construct historical and social spaces", but she is not yet clear how to achieve it. In the 1980s and 1990s, Elnaud wrote other works while conceiving the content and form required for the book. In 2003, Erno wrote in Writing is a Knife: "I've wanted to write something 'somewhere between literature, sociology and history' since 15 years ago, and that's what I want to do most so far." ”
In 1998, Elnaud began to have ideas. On March 30, she wrote: "How do you make the individual completely unnamed? On May 18, Elno wrote: "materiality" and "our memory is material," and underlined these two sentences. Elno realized that most of the traces left in the memory were material. "Gather all the traces of external reality to illustrate the inner reality?" The first traces of matter that come to Elnor's mind are "visual images, songs, everything external, reality outside the self." On this day, for the first time, she called the project she had been brewing for nearly 20 years "Autobiographie Vide." However, this is not a moment of epiphany, Elnaud has been thinking and trying before this, as evidenced by the above-mentioned External Diary and External Life, which are closely related to Les Années, because they both focus on the material details of reality outside of personal life. In Shame (1997), Elno began to write songs, photographs, and postcards. In 2003, Elnaud clearly pointed out the importance of songs in the dialogue "Writing is a Knife", which is "individual and collective 'Madeleine cake'"; And she has always been fascinated by photos, and can be in front of a picture for a long time, like solving a puzzle.
Elno was also influenced by the French writer Georges Perec, notably Things (1964) and I Recall (Je me Souvieens, 1978). In a 2005 interview with sociologist Isabelle Charpentier, Elno described reading Objects in 1965 as "a very important moment" for her, which led her to see "another possibility of literature." The subtitle of "Things" is "History of the 60s" (Une histoire des années soixante). Perec wrote this work not just to list the nouns of objects, but to record an era. From this point of view, Elnor's "empty autobiography" project has something in common with "Things". Perec consciously uses advertising to depict clothing and homes as a way to portray the material reality of an era. "I Remember" is Perec's enumeration of details of everyday life. Perec's training in history at university influenced his writing. In 1955, after a year of preparatory school, he began studying history at the Sorbonne. In 1956 he was again enrolled at the Sorbonne with a degree in medieval history. In 1957, Jean Paris introduced Perec to the work of writing an overview of the social sciences for the Bulletin signalétique du C.N.R.S. In the 1960s, both sociology and historical research began to pay attention to everyday life, and the field of social sciences also began to pay attention to the study of discourse, with Sartre publishing "Words" in 1964, Perec publishing "Things" in 1965, and Foucault publishing "Words and Things" in 1966. Perec wrote Things under the influence of the social sciences and history. The work is considered to have the quality of a "sociological investigation". Elnor's writing was heavily influenced by sociology, and she also used literature to document the historical pursuits of the era, and she saw in Perec's work the possibility of realizing her own writing project.
佩雷克:《物》(Things: A History of the Sixties)
Perek: "I Remember" (Je me souviens)
One of the big questions Elnor's question in the process of conceiving this grand plan was: "Now that I have the knowledge I have, how can I express my knowledge in each era?" After making it clear that he wanted to start from a material point of view, Elnaud had a specific plan. She realized that books, movies, and music all have a very strong shaping effect on people; In addition, photos can also reflect an era, as can the food and conversation at family dinners. Elno found content that reflected the changing times, and then thought about the form that matched it. The subject in The Long Years is no longer "I," but "on," "people," or "nous." There are also many passages that are not made up of complete sentences, but a long list of nouns or phrases that appear in the original form of a verb, as if in a list. "The Long Years" is therefore also called "unnamed autobiography" and "social autobiography".
Elnor's language style also determines her ability to navigate this unique genre. In the documentary Les mots comme des pierres (Words Like Stones, 2013), Elnaud said: "My language is material, it is difficult for me to do abstraction, I have actual scenes in my mind", "Words are things to me." The words represent Elnor's vision, and they also help her present the scenes she sees. Erno says she uses only the necessary words, like fishing stones out of a well or a river. After Elnold found the content and form he needed, the writing process was still not easy. She was treated for breast cancer from 2002 to 2003, and wrote in her writing journal on July 12, 2003: "Breast cancer. I haven't written anything since around January 20. "The Long Years" was completed in October 2007 and published in 2008. At this point, a literary work with a sociological vision and historical pursuit was completed.
Writing as a "weapon of battle"
For Elnor, the choice of vocabulary to use in writing is a political one. In 1989, in an article titled Littérature et politique (Literature and Politics), Elnaud noted that in the 1980s literature was considered to have nothing to do with politics: "When I first wanted to write, I was 20 years old, and of course I thought that literature was 'producing art' (I was completely influenced by university dogma at that time, how could I have any other idea?). ）”； "I have always felt that writing is related to the injustice of the world, I believe that literature can change society, literature is also a political action, of course, literature is not exactly the same as political action itself. Literature cannot stop wars and provide work for the unemployed... Literature does not work immediately. From a long-term perspective, literature can penetrate the reader's imagination, make readers notice realities that were once ignored, or make readers see problems from a new perspective. Literature allows readers to say things that have never been said before. Literature is a slow, silent change, beginning through covert reading. Elnaud believes that the goal of literature is "to use all forms of art to describe and change the world."
Elnault has publicly expressed her support for the political stance of the French left, and she has spoken out in newspapers, radio and other media. "Being on the left means believing in what the state can do to make individuals happier, freer, and more educated," Elnold said. On March 30, 2020, Elnault wrote an open letter to President Emmanuel Macron, in which she stood with workers, pointing out that it is the public service that keeps the country running, "hospitals, thousands of teachers with meager salaries in the education system, the electricity system, the post office, the subway, the railway system ... "ensuring a material life as important as the intellectual life." In the 2022 French presidential election, Elnault publicly expressed his support for Jean-Luc Mélenchon and accused the current President Macron of being linked to the rise of the French far right. Elnault walks beside Mélenchon on October 16, 2022, when the French Syriza Alliance launched a march against high prices and the French authorities' inaction on climate change. Elnault supports social justice, supports the "gilet jaunes" movement, and supports victims of sexual violence. Elno sympathizes with migrants, writing in her "Outside Diary" of 21 June 2000: "No one doubts the laws that allow the free movement of goods but prohibit the free movement of people. "In this day and age, humans need to pretend to be commodities to cross borders." She also hopes that there will be more writers in France with less "French" names, less "classic" names, that is, "writers from the common class and immigrant groups".
Elnor's 2020 open letter to President Emmanuel Macron
Elnor's leftist political stance was not formed in the family, but gradually established in life, reading, and writing across classes. Elnor's parents ran a grocery coffee shop, and in order to do business, they adhered to the principle of not talking about politics in the store. Erno grew up in the store and naturally adhered to this principle. However, she heard a lot of conversations and learned a lot of suffering in two public places, coffee shops and grocery stores. Her later political stance was also influenced by her mother's personality, whom Elno said was a person "with her own pride," "a spirit of resistance and a desire for justice." In a 2005 interview, Elnaud said: "Since the '70s, writing has been a way for me to fully engage in politics, a political action. She said she had a sense of getting involved in politics since the Algerian war, long before she started writing. She believes that writing "has a strong political meaning, and there is always political meaning in what I write, and sometimes it is even independent of me." I've also been criticized for this, because writers with political involvement are less common these days. She said many literary critics are distressed because "my books don't convey a clear political message, I don't write the kind of books that openly express political opinions... But they still felt that my book still had political implications after all. ”
On October 6, 2022, Elno listened to the radio in the kitchen and learned through the radio that he had won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The next day, in an interview with Radio France Internationale, she pointed out: "Literature is not neutral, never has been neutral. To discuss beautifully written books, to discuss beautiful texts, is to cover up power. She soberly pointed out that her Nobel Prize was related to political factors. Faced with the prize, Elnold said: "I write for the sake of writing, not for the sake of winning the Nobel Prize." Asked which French writer he felt closest to a Nobel Prize-winning writer, Hernaud replied: Camus, while admitting that he was an "interventionist writer" (écrivaine engagée). On the day of the award, Elno said at a press conference hosted by Gallima Press that he had more responsibilities. However, this responsibility is not new, and Elno has been assuming social responsibility through vocalization.
Interaction with fields other than literature
Elnor's path to writing about himself has inspired many authors to write about their experiences, especially those who also have cross-class experiences. In France, Didier Éribon, author of Return to Home (2009), and Éduard Louis, who was deeply influenced by Elnippon, say their writing was inspired and influenced by Elnor. The French edition of Return to Home, titled "Retour à Reims" (Return to Reims), and Elnor's Retour à Yvetot (Return to Ivoto) in 2013 created an interaction between the two texts.
Elno also interacted with academics in the social sciences. This kind of interaction refers not only to face-to-face interaction, but also to intellectual interaction. Although sociology, especially Bourdieu's study of French social classes, gave Elnou much inspiration, Hernaud never met Bourdieu himself. Just as Beauvoir's The Second Sex had a great influence on Hernor, she never met Beauvoir himself (Elno sent Beauvoir his books in 1974 and 1977 and received replies from Beauvoir). Elnor's reading of sociology did not stop at Bourdieu. Elnaud has subscribed to the journal Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales since 1983, when her eldest son was attending university with a degree in sociology. Elnaud has been subscribed to the journal ever since. On October 8, 2022, Hernault spoke with three women scholars in social sciences in an interview with Radio France Culture, and she mentioned that it was in this journal that she read a paper by the French sociologist Rose-Marie Lagrave. Elnault is currently working with Ragraaf, a generation of women with cross-class experience, whose book Une conversation, is expected to be published by Éditions de l'EHESS in March 2023.
"Une conversation"
In addition, Elnor's work has also reverberated in the field of sociology. In France, the social sciences began to pay attention to Elnor's work very early. In 1999, Isabella Charles Bonguière, a scholar of sociology and political science, completed her doctoral thesis in political science on the reception of Elnor's work. In the 90s, although Elnor's work was not yet fully recognized by literary criticism, she was already very popular with readers, and Elnaud received a large number of letters from readers. She learned that Charles Bonguiai was writing his doctoral dissertation and very readily sent letters from readers to Charles Bungier Research.
Elnor's work has also influenced historians. Ludivine Bantigny, a French historian who has studied social movements such as the Algerian War and the "May Storm" of 1968, finds her research inspired by the way Elno wrote specific memories in memory. She wrote in L'œuvre du temps (2019) that Elnor's depiction of the "May Storm" in The Long Years confirmed that the movement did have a significant impact on people's mentality. Elnor's literary works serve as a record that corroborates historical research.
Bontini: L'œuvre du temps
Elnor's influence not only stayed in the field of literature and research, she was also active in the field of audiovisual. Elno has participated in radio programs many times, and she also carefully chooses her words when speaking like writing, which is very rigorous; At the same time, it is very sincere and direct, and will say to the host "It's not what you said", "This is too big", "This is the definition I can give at present". Elnor's "The Long Years" was made into a 10-episode radio show. In addition, she reads her own works and makes audiobooks. Elnaud has also participated in television interviews and documentaries such as Words Like Stones (2013) and I Like Living There (2021). In 2022, the documentary "Super 8 Years" co-produced by Elno and his son will be released. Elnor's work has also been adapted into plays and films, including the film of the same name adapted from "Pure Passion" (2020) and the film "Happening" (2021) adapted from "Events".
Cahier de l'Herne Manual
In 1991, Elno went to borrow books from the library of the Sorbonne and suddenly sighed: "In 60 years, the things I have seen, loved and enjoyed will only become a stack of printed paper, and no one will come to borrow them except those who write doctoral dissertations." Elnor's fears did not materialize. According to statistics, Elnault's books have sold nearly 4 million copies in France. After the Nobel Prize was announced, Galima Press urgently printed 900,000 copies. Elnaud is still active in his work. This year she published Young Men, republished her writing journal, Black Studio, and launched a Cahier de l'Herne manual. When Elno won the Yousenaar Prize, she said, "Dissolve life in writing," and Elno did, and she has been writing. We are very lucky to be able to read her work.