How a French Nobel Laureate Remembers Things Past
On Paper and Film, Annie Ernaux Probes History for Questions, Not Answers
Memory is an imperfect reflector of lived experience. We look back through a series of lenses, and our focal mechanisms shift with the light. Personal memory is shape-shifted by history—what is reported on, ruminated on, analyzed, assessed. It’s shaped by who we meet, what we see, and who we choose to see—and who chooses to see, or not see, us. Memory refracts experiences, processes and purees them.
What does the tension between memory and history—both personal and shared, the “I” and the “we”—teach us about both remembering and documenting our time …
