ANNIE ERNO
Passion
translation by Rita Colaiti,
ed. Metaichmyo, page 80

Last fall, Facebook, where the first warm reactions to the streaming reality are recorded, was an exchange of verbal skirmishes. Does Frenchwoman Anne Erno deserve the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature? I share the view of my editor friend who argues that the Nobel Prize should be awarded to a very good writer, but not necessarily to the most important writer in the world – an assessment that is impossible anyway. Yes, Ani Erno (b. 1940) is a very interesting, good writer who became famous in Greece in the 80s thanks to the publications of Hadzinikoli. Today, his Greek translations follow one after the other. Over the past three years, Metaihmio has published seven of her novels and short stories translated by Rita Kolaitis: “Passion”, “Young Man”, “Memories of a Girl”, “Event”, “Years”, “Woman” and “Place”. six will appear next year.

In all her texts, Erno is autobiographical. What interest can there be in the life of a Western European woman who worked as a teacher, got married, had children, got divorced and wrote literature all her life? This is where the secret lies. Her mastery lies in the fact that she manages to distinguish between the public and the public through the personal and the private (the author is greedy for experience). And he does this by dissolving the subjective ego into the impersonal ego that represents everyone. How is this achieved? Thanks to her characteristic style, which remains unchanged in all her works. Erno uses dedramatized, simple, neutral language, no adjectives, no comparisons, no judgments, no tensions, no accusations, even when it comes to extreme situations. In this way, she manages to turn the reader into an observer who observes with a neutral eye what is happening between her and others, she manages to turn herself into an object of observation. In this way, he highlights aspects of the ego as well as post-war society in France, and highlights the problems of memory and the arcane pitfalls of narrative technique. She coined the apt term “autosociobiography” for her prose, as her themes concern adolescence (“Memories of a Girl”), her love and sexual relationships (“Passion”, “Young Man”), and illegal activities. abortion (“The Event”), parents and their low social background (“Woman”, “Place”), her personal life for decades and France (“Years”).

One of the complaints about her award was that, with the world on fire due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, migration flows and the explosion of authoritarianism in the US and Europe, the Nobel Prize, as the complaint says, decided to award literature. evasiveness – the prose of pseudo-radicalism of gender identities and narrative formalism. Nothing could be more wrong. The private is political. Because what was the turn of the current, which gradually ensured greater and greater freedom of the individual, manifested itself in? The prohibition of abortion and contraceptives is a symbolic form of this appeal, the first victim of which is the right of women to self-determination of their bodies. Erno returns to the topic with his sensational event. And what else is literature, if not a constant reflection on the form of storytelling? If we cannot understand this, then it is as if we are returning to the wrong place and at the wrong time, to dark zdanofism.