L'esdeveniment

When Annie Ernaux became pregnant at the age of 23, it was clear to her that it was not what she wanted and that in France getting rid of it was illegal. In this account, she recalls one of the most shocking and controversial experiences that a woman can have, an event that transcends her body: abortion in a society that punished it, as it was both taboo, stigmatized and a crime. With her lucid prose, Ernaux explores the feelings of loneliness and fear that tinged that episode: how she had to hide her condition from her parents, seek solutions alone in the face of the indolence of her supposedly progressive peers, and dodge social hypocrisy and the pain of feeling judged by everyone, including doctors. A detailed and chilling testimony narrated with sincerity, brevity and honesty about how society can deny a woman's ability to decide and the physical and emotional violence this entails.