The news that French author Annie Ernaux – who has written a string of acclaimed books - has been awarded the Nobel prize for literature is a cause for celebration, writes Mediapart journalist and literature lecturer Lise Wajeman. But how should one interpret the bestowal of this prestigious prize to the French writer, given that she herself once declared: “What I also want to destroy is literature”?
An admirer of the works of late French writer Claude Simon, who received the Nobel Prize for literature for his collected works in 1985, sent an extract from one of his books, disguised as a new submission, to 19 publishers in France who all rejected it, one of them dismissing it for its lack of 'a real plot with well-drawn characters'.
