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The Years

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The Years

By: Annie Ernaux
Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
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About this listen

The Years is a personal narrative of the period of 1941 to 2006 told through the lens of memory, impressions past and present - even projections into the future - photos, books, songs, radio, television, and decades of advertising and headlines, contrasted with intimate conflicts and written notes from six decades of diaries. Local dialect, words of the time, slogans, brands, and names for ever-proliferating objects are given a voice here. The voice we recognize as the author's continually dissolves and re-emerges. Ernaux makes the passage of time palpable. Time itself, inexorable, narrates its own course, consigning all other narrators to anonymity. A new kind of autobiography emerges, at once subjective and impersonal, private and collective.

On its 2008 publication in France, The Years came as a surprise. Although Ernaux had, for years, been hailed as a beloved best-selling and award-winning author, The Years was in many ways a departure: both an intimate memoir written by entire generations and a story of generations telling a very personal story.

©2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC (P)2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC Europe France

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Profile Image for Melinda

Absorbing and insightful

It took some time for this book to hook me. Initially, I was perplexed by the story which seemed social and cultural, not personal, but it slowly hooked me and I became enthralled. This work demonstrates how biography is always inextricably bound to its social and political context. Ernaux does something wonderful and new, and produces a book for the ages.

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Profile Image for Elizabeth Stacey

Scenes of the past captured vividly

The way the author has captured her lifetime as personal scenes of family life, experiences of differing ages described through politics, culture, clothing and her own life are so vivid and well written.

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