ANNIE ERNAUX WINS LITERATURE NOBEL

French author Annie Ernaux, known for her deceptively simple novels drawing on personal experience of class and gender, was on Thursday awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Ernaux, 82, was honoured “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory”, the jury said.
Interviewed on Swedish television immediately after the announcement, Ms. Ernaux called it a “very great honour” and “a great responsibility”.

Part of school syllabi

Her more than 20 books, many of which have been school texts in France for decades, offer one of the most subtle, insightful windows into the social life of modern France.
Personal experiences are the source for all of Ms. Ernaux’s work and she is the pioneer of France’s “autofiction” genre, which gives narrative form to real-life experience.

Background:

The Nobel Prize was set up when businessman Alfred Nobel died and left the majority of his fortune to the establishment of prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace.
His will stated that the prizes should be awarded to those who shall have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.
Since the 1st Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901, they have been awarded annually. It was not awarded, mostly during World War I and II.

A Nobel Prize cannot be awarded posthumously.

Nobel Prize	Selection
Nobel Prize in Physics and Chemistry	Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine	The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet
Nobel Prize in Literature	The Swedish Academy
Nobel Peace Prize	Norwegian Nobel Committee

[Norwegian Nobel Committee is a 5-member committee of the Norwegian Parliament (Storting).]
Fund – When Alfred Nobel died leaving the majority of his fortune to the establishment of the Nobel Prize he stated that the money should be converted into a fund and invested in “safe securities.”
Today the interest earned on that money is used to fund the Nobel Prizes.

Nobel Prize Laureate