In her spare, stark style, Annie Ernaux documents the desires and indignities of a human heart ensnared in an all-consuming passion. Blurring the line between fact and fiction, an unnamed narrator attempts to plot the emotional and physical course of her two-year relationship with a married foreigner where every word, event, and person either provides a connection with her beloved or is subject to her cold indifference. With courage and exactitude, she seeks the truth behind an existence lived entirely for someone else, and, in the pieces of its aftermath, she is able to find it.

A Woman s Story is Annie Ernaux s "deeply affecting account of mothers and daughters, youth and age, and dreams and reality" (Kirkus Reviews). Upon her mother s death from Alzheimer s, Ernaux embarks on a daunting journey back through time, as she seeks to "capture the real woman, the one who existed independently from me, born on the outskirts of a small Normandy town, and who died in the geriatric ward of a hospital in the suburbs of Paris." She explores the bond between mother and daughter, tenuous and unshakable at once, the alienating worlds that separate them, and the inescapable truth...

A fragmented and largely retrospective description of a daughter's relationship with her father, La Place deals with issues of sexuality, social standing and alienation. This is an accessible and exciting addition to French studies courses.

First Published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A powerful meditation on ageing and familial love, I REMAIN IN DARKNESS recounts Annie Ernaux's attempts to help her mother recover from Alzheimer's disease, and then, when that proves futile, to bear witness to the older woman's gradual decline and her own experience as a daughter losing a beloved parent. Haunting and devastatingly poignant, I REMAIN IN DARKNESS showcases Ernaux's unique talent for evoking life's darkest and most bewildering episodes.