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Times

Annie Ernaux and the bourgeosie's ‘extraordinary erotic capabilities'

'I have always wanted to write as if I would be gone when the book was published,' Annie Ernaux once admitted. 'To write as if I were about to die.' If by that she meant writing with brazen candour, she has succeeded. The most intimate human experiences — grief, greed, fear, sickness and lust, along with other kinds of private 'primordial savagery' — are laid bare throughout the prolific French author's works, sometimes in shudderingly explicit detail, and The Possession is no exception. It is the latest in a series of reprints of her books from the independent publisher Fitzcarraldo. The deadly sin that this particular memoir focuses on is envy, with Ernaux reluctantly handing over an ex-boyfriend to an anonymous new woman. 'The strangest