French literature was in the spotlight on Saturday evening in Sweden. Writer Annie Ernaux paid tribute to literary giant Albert Camus after receiving his Nobel Prize in Literature in Stockholm, 65 years after the author of the stranger.
During her speech of thanks at the grand banquet celebrating the 2022 winners in the Swedish capital, the 82-year-old author expressed her “gratitude” for being listed alongside Camus, Nobel Literature 1957. “Find me here, 65 years later, leaves me with a deep sense of astonishment and gratitude,” declared Annie Ernaux to the 2,000 guests gathered at Stockholm City Hall.
First French to win this Nobel
“Amazement at the mystery represented by a path of life and a hazardous, solitary pursuit of writing. Gratitude for allowing me to join Camus, and these late or contemporary writers that I admire,” she said. Annie Ernaux, the first French woman to win the supreme award after 15 French people, also greeted “those who are not here, these men and women who have sometimes found in my books reasons to live and to fight, to feel more proud”. “By rewarding my work, you force me to be even more demanding in the search for a reality and a shareable truth,” she said, her voice imbued with emotion.
Along with the other “Swedish” Nobel laureates announced in October, she received her prize earlier in the afternoon from the hands of the King of Sweden, during the traditional ceremony held in Stockholm. In Oslo, the capital of Norway, the Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian Nobel Peace Prize laureates called for them not to lay down their arms against the “crazy and criminal” war that Vladimir Putin has launched in Ukraine.