Sex, Time, and Memory: Annie Ernaux’s Young Man, by Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee

Sex, Time, and Memory: Annie Ernaux’s Young Man, by Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee Book Reviews [email protected] Mon, 08/21/2023 - 15:04   The Young Man—forthcoming from Seven Stories in September 2023—is Annie Ernaux’s first novel in English translation after receiving the most coveted honor in literature, the Nobel Prize in Literature, in October 2022 (see WLT’s review of Le Jeune Homme, May 2023, 73). A slim book of autofiction, translated by Alison Strayer, it is a few pages shorter than Simple Passion (1991), her shortest book so far. With deft terseness, Ernaux recounts her short relationship with a student thirty years younger than her. The epigraph reiterates the raison d’être of her writing: living is incomplete without evaluating life’s experiences. Life is spontaneous facticity, spent in accordance with one’s desires and impulses. Writing throws new light on life. It unearths, as Ernaux puts it in The Girl’s Story (2016), something that is irreducible to any singular explanation. In a startling sentence at the beginning of The Young Man, Ernaux equates writing with the need and possibility of overcoming “the fatigue, the dereliction” of sex and the violence of orgasm. She feels writing brings “greater pleasure” than sex, because it doesn’t abandon you to a postcoital void. It is reminiscent of Roland Barthes’s idea of body-writing in The Pleasure of the Text (1973), of writing as a fragmented overcoming of... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'

[ World Literature Today | 2023-08-21 20:04:48 UTC ]
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Review: 'The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat' by Thomas McNamee

'The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat' is a not-very-filling biography of the late Craig Claiborne, a food editor, restaurant critic and cookbook author who helped shape the modern American food world.The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-05-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Los Angeles Times Shutting Down LA Magazine

The Los Angeles Times is shutting down its monthly Sunday magazine, LA. The last issue will be June 3rd and the closure comes after attempts to recast the publication through frequency reductions, management shifts and editorial change-ups. Continue reading at Folio Magazine

[ Folio Magazine | 2012-05-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Same Sex, Different Story: PW Talks with Rodger Streitmatter

Just as president Obama comes out in favor of gay marriage, a new book takes a close look at American same sex couples, from Walt Whitman to Greta Garbo to Jasper Johns. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-05-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Time magazine breastfeeding cover: A shocking 'stroke of genius'

Time magazine's breastfeeding cover story asks: "Are You Mom Enough?" But it might as well ask: "Who Says Print Is Dead?" Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-05-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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PPA Conference: Digital takes up 80% of our time, says Hearst's Dolphin

Although print accounts for 80% of Hearst's revenues, the publisher is spending 80% of its time on the "huge potential" of digital, according to Ella Dolphin, publishing director of Hearst Magazines UK's young women's group. Continue reading at Media Week

[ Media Week | 2012-05-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Time Inc. Subscription, Advertising Revenues Down in Q1 2012

Time Inc. reports a loss in both advertising and subscription revenue in the first quarter of 2012. Ad revenue decreased five percent (equivalent to $19 million), with subscription revenue down two percent (valued at $6 million). Continue reading at Folio Magazine

[ Folio Magazine | 2012-05-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Time Inc. Shrinking Again

Not a good sign for the magazine business: A rough quarter for Time Inc. the world's biggest magazine publisher. Continue reading at AllThingsD

[ AllThingsD | 2012-05-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Getting a read on the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

More than 400 authors are scheduled over the two days at USC. Writers as varied as Anne Rice and Jeff Kinney will hold court.What do Sugar Ray Leonard, Judy Blume, Betty White, T.C. Boyle, Rodney King, Joseph Wambaugh and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar have in common? They're just a few of the high-profile... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-04-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Faber launches Burn memorial prize

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[ The Bookseller | 2012-04-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Guardian and Hot Keys launch young writers prize

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[ The Bookseller | 2012-04-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Will Young memoir to Little, Brown

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[ The Bookseller | 2012-04-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Figment lets young writers share and critique work

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[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2012-04-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Time Out New York Launches E-Commerce, Daily Deals Platform

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[ Folio Magazine | 2012-04-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ AdWeek | 2012-04-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-04-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-03-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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World Young Reader Prizes Opens For Entries

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[ Editor & Publisher | 2012-03-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2012-03-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Survey Finds 60% of Publishers Agree that Print Publishing’s Time is Limited

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[ Editor & Publisher | 2012-03-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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