Ernaux is the first female French woman to win this prize, and her work, which is primarily autobiographical and historical, was commended by Emmanuel Macron as being the voice of 'freedom of women and of the forgotten'. Her novels focus on her individual experiences combined with historical events. Her historical memoir, Les Années is widely regarded to be her magnum opus and offers a glimpse of French society just after the Second World War until the early 2000s. This novel was nominated for the International Booker Prize in 2019, causing her popularity to increase massively in anglophone countries. On her website, Ernaux describes her own work as 'autosociobiographical', highlighting the highly personal direction her works took after her first three fictionalised biographical stories. Ernaux is the first memorist to be honoured by this prize, and with it, the strength of both her writing and the public intrigue in what is, ultimately, a private life, is brought to the forefront of a society overly concerned with how they are viewed. She has the ability to draw a reader into her personal life and to find the collective in her own recollections, drawing her life into fiction rather than lecturing the facts of her life to an audience.
Ernaux is published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, a tiny, London-based independent publisher with only six full-time employees. Housing four Nobel-winning authors, the publishing house is disproportionately successful, leaving people questioning what are they doing so right? Bridget Shine, chief executive of the Independent Publishers Guild says that small publishers such as Fitzcarraldo make 'enormous contributions to literary culture and give a voice to authors who would otherwise go unheard in the UK'. She says that what sets them apart from other publishers in the UK is that they 'take risks in their commissioning that most bigger publishers would not and they consistently punch way above their weight in literary prizes such as the Nobel and Booker.'