Annie Ernaux, French writer distinguished this Thursday with the Nobel Prize for Literature, has three books translated into Portuguese currently available in bookstores: “Uma Paixão Simples”, “Os Anos” and “O Acontecimento”. The Observer publishes here an excerpt, more precisely the first chapter, from “O Acontecimento”, the most recent work by Annie Ernaux to be translated into Portuguese.
The novel, originally published in France in 2000, hit Portuguese bookstores last month, translated by Maria Etelvina Santos and edited by Livros do Brasil. It is an autobiographical book (one of the fundamental features of the author’s writing), crossing the personal experience with the social portrait, given that the work is based on the memories of an abortion performed by Ernaux in 1963, at a time when that the voluntary termination of pregnancy was illegal in her country.
The cover of “The Event” by Annie Ernaux
I went down to Barbes. Like last time, there were groups of men waiting by the surface subway. Some people walked the sidewalk with pink bags from Tati’s stores. I followed Magenta Boulevard, recognized the Billy Stores, with the anoraks hanging outside. A woman was walking towards me, black stockings with large fancy patterns on her fat legs. The rue Ambroise-Paré was almost deserted even near the hospital. I walked through the vaulted corridor of the Elisa pavilion. The first time I hadn’t noticed a bandstand in the courtyard that flanks the glass-enclosed corridor. I wondered how I would see all this again when I left. I opened door number 15 and went up the two floors. At the projection service reception, I handed over the card with my number. The woman reached into a file and pulled out a kraft paper envelope with various papers inside. I held out her hand to her, but she didn’t give it to me. She put it on the desk and told me to go sit down, they would call me.
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Source: Observadora
