I Will Write to Avenge My People

Review

This short text from Ernaux is a collection of her Nobel lecture, banquet speech, and then a short biography. At 43 pages it is so short that I read it in about 20 minutes (the type is quite large), and would strongly recommend it. She writes about the alienation from your home and people that happens when you move out of your homeland, your homeclass. Language changes, and yet it can snap you back. She discusses her writing style, how she developed it and the decisions made therein, particularly in her use of the of “I.”

She discusses her “people” and that made me think a lot about who “my” people are. Rural folks? Gay folks? People from my class? All sorts of populations that I think about every day, that I represent sometimes willfully and sometimes begrudgingly. A week or two ago I felt the need to defend farmers, because someone in a book club had trouble believing a farmer would know Hegel. This incensed me. It was an affront to my people - whether I’ve stayed there or not, I am forever from there, forever responsible for bringing their voices with me.

I think about this a lot. I valued and appreciated reading Ernaux’s thoughts.