As part of the New Delhi World Book Fair, the Embassy of France in India and French Institute in India in collaboration with Alliance Française de Delhi invite you for the screening of French film – Happening followed by Q&A session with the Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux.
Synopsis: France, 1963. Anne is a bright young student with a promising future ahead of her. But when she falls pregnant, she sees the opportunity to finish her studies and escape the constraints of her social background disappearing. With her final exams fast approaching and her belly growing, Anne resolves to act, even if she has to confront shame and pain, even if she must risk prison to do so…
Annie Ernaux is the author of twenty books with Éditions Gallimard, including La Place/A Man’s Place (Prix Renaudot 1984), Passion simple/Simple Passion (1991), L’Événement/Happening (2000, made into film by Audrey Diwan in 2021), Les Années/The Years (2008, nominated for the Man Booker International Prize 2019) and Mémoire de fille/A Girl’s Story (2016). Her books have been gathered in a collection entitled Écrire la vie (2011).
Her writing, heavily influenced by autobiography, has strong connections to sociology. “Ernaux’s work is uncompromising and written in plain language, scraped clean. And when she with great courage and clinical acuity reveals the agony of the experience of class, describing shame, humiliation, jealousy or inability to see who you are, she has achieved something admirable and enduring” says the Swedish Academy.