July 31
WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE 2022
Translated by Alison L. Strayer
"The Years is an earnest, fearless book, a Remembrance of Things Past for our age of media domination and consumerism, for our period of absolute commodity fetishism." —Edmund White
Winner of the 2019 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation
Shortlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize
Winner of the 2018 French-American Foundation Translation Prize
Winner of the 2016 Strega European Prize
The Years is a personal narrative from Annie Ernaux of the period 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, headlines, contrasted with intimate conflicts and writing notes from six decades of diaries. Local dialect, words of the times, slogans, brands and names for the ever-proliferating objects, are given 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. Though Ernaux had for years been hailed as a beloved, bestselling 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. Like the generation before hers, the narrator eschews the "I" for the "we" (or "they," or "one") as if collective life were inextricably intertwined with a private life that in her parents' generation ceased to exist. She writes of her parents' generation (and could be writing of her own book): "From a common fund of hunger and fear, everything was told in the 'we' and impersonal pronouns."
Women in Translation: Announcing a Week-Long Sale and a New Bookseller Initiative
Back in June, after we announced a special offer for Pride Month, Eileen Dengler, executive director of the North Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association (NAIBA) reached out to me asking if we could find a way to include booksellers directly in these kinds of initiatives. I was intrigued, and excited. I reached out to our sales team at Penguin Random House, and right away they were excited too. The result, beginning today, is what we hope will be a monthly partnership in which Seven Stories creates special themed collections and PRH offers these titles to booksellers at a special 51% discount for the entire month. Within that span, Seven Stories will also feature these collections for one week at a time online, hopefully building awareness of these titles—beginning today with “Women in Translation” since it is Women in Translation month, and the other, beginning August 15, “For Human Rights, Against War,” featuring a number of our most widely read political titles. We’ll discount these titles online, but only in such a way that booksellers can experiment with matching our discount if they so wish, thanks to the additional trade discount they receive.
We don’t know if this is exactly the right model. What we know is that a lot about it feels right, and we’ll keep experimenting until we find the model that is right for booksellers and publishers alike. If we can do that, then others will follow us.
If you have a local independent bookstore, shop there before you shop on our site, and remember that we provide a free e-book of every book that you buy from us online. If you buy one of the books from the collection at an independent bookstore, email a picture of your receipt to sevenstories@sevenstories.com to get a free e-book and updates from Seven Stories.
—Dan Simon, Publisher
Seven Stories Press
Here are the seven award-winning titles from our Women in Translation series, all at 35% off through August 8th. Free shipping within the U.S.!
1. The Hotel Tito: A Novel, by Ivana Bodrožić, translated by Ellen-Elias Bursać
Applauded as the finest work of fiction to appear about the Yugoslav Wars, acclaimed poet and novelist Ivana Bodrožić’s The Hotel Tito is at its heart a story of a young girl’s coming of age, a reminder that even during times of war—especially during such times—the future rests with those who are the innocent victims and peaceful survivors.
2. The Tongue’s Blood Does Not Run Dry: Algerian Stories, by Assia Djebar, translated by Tegan Raleigh
In these short stories, Djebar presents a brutal yet delicate exposition of how warring worlds enact their battles upon women’s lives and bodies.
3. The Ages of Lulu: A Novel, by Almudena Grandes, translated by Sonia Soto
The lurid and compelling story of the sexual awakening of a girl long fascinated by the thin line separating decency and morality from perversion, but whose increasingly dangerous sexual forays threaten to engulf her completely.
4. Syrian Dust: Reporting from the Heart of the War, by Francesca Borri, translated by Anne Milano Appel
In moving, powerful prose, Syrian Dust is a record of a freelance war reporter confronting the many-factioned conflict being fought against Bashar al Assad.
5. The Years, by Annie Ernaux, translated by Alison L. Strayer
The Years is a personal narrative of the period 1941 to 2006 told through the lens of memory, impressions of past and present—even projections into the future—photos, books, songs, radio, television and decades of advertising, headlines, contrasted with intimate conflicts and writing notes from six decades.
6. Natural Histories, by Guadalupe Nettel, translated by J.T. Lichtenstein
Five dark and delicately written stories by international award-winner Guadalupe Nettel unfold in fragile worlds, where Siamese fighting fish, cockroaches, a cat, a snake, and a strange fungus are mirrors that reflect the unconfessable aspects of human nature we keep hidden.
7. The Little Communist Who Never Smiled, by Lola Lafon, translated by Nick Caistor
Adored by young girls in the west and appropriated as a political emblem by the Ceausescu regime, Comaneci’s life was scrutinized wherever she went, her body seemingly no longer her own. Lafon’s ficitionalized account shows how an extraordinary athlete mesmerizes the world, her fate reverberating across nations.
The author of some twenty works of fiction and memoir, ANNIE ERNAUX is considered by many to be France’s most important writer. In 2022, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She has also won the Prix Renaudot for A Man's Place and the Marguerite Yourcenar Prize for her body of work. More recently she received the International Strega Prize, the Prix Formentor, the French-American Translation Prize, and the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation for The Years, which was also shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize. Her other works include Exteriors, A Girl's Story, A Woman's Story, The Possession, Simple Passion, Happening, I Remain in Darkness, Shame, A Frozen Woman, A Man's Place, and The Young Man.
Alison L. Strayer is a Canadian writer and translator. She won the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, and her work has been shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for Literature and for Translation, the Grand Prix du livre de Montreal, the Prix littéraire France-Québec, and the Man Booker International Prize. She lives in Paris.
