The Young Man

ANNIE ERNAUX, winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature, is the author of some twenty works of fiction and memoir, winner of the Prix Renaudot for A Man's Place, and of the Marguerite Yourcenar Prize for her body of work. She is also the winner of the International Strega Prize and the French-American Translation Prize and shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize for The Years. In 2019 she was the recipient of the Prix Formentor. She is now considered to be France's most important literary voice, and is the first French woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. 

ALISON L. STRAYER is a Canadian writer and translator. Her work has been shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for Literature and for Translation, the Grand Prix du livre de Montreal, and the Prix litteraire France-Quebec. She lives in Paris.

A sublime book. Elle

"That Ernaux can do so much  The Young Man tackles love, aging, desire, loss, misogyny, class and death in such a small space is clearly the hallmark of a writer who has honed her craft to be razor sharp. It cuts to the bone." Jessica Ferri, The Washington Post

The major pleasure in reading this book and it is a major pleasure comes not so much from gasping over sensual details but from savoring Ernaux s sentences and the searing clarity of her thinking. It isn t just that she avoids sentimentality, though she does that, too. It s that the author can (and does) analyze all kinds of intersecting threads aging, class, desire, regret without a sense of shame or an impulse to sugarcoat any of the truths she uncovered during her time with A. . . . A crucial addition to Ernaux s oeuvre. Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"A romance on its face, The Young Man gathers singularity and texture as an account of manifold transits: between youth and age, living and dying, in and out of passion, passing through menopause, and from Ernaux s impoverished beginnings through her ascension into the literary bourgeoisie." Bookforum

"Gripping. . . . Nobel prize winning writer Annie Ernaux s recounts her fervent love affair with A., a man 30 years her junior." Nylon

"In the sensitive hands of Annie Ernaux and her translator Alison L. Strayer, a slim and seemingly salacious story of a woman s love affair with a much younger man transforms into a profound exploration of power and domination, of reliving through writing, and of how passion elevates us to a kind of agelessness." Words Without Borders

"A meditation on a dalliance that made [French author and 2022 Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux] think differently about love, time, and aging." TIME magazine, Most Anticipated Books for Fall 2023

The Young Man is more than the story of an