Annie Ernaux, born Duchesne on September 1, 1940 in Lillebonne (Seine-Inférieure), is a French teacher and writer. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2022 for the courage and clinical acuity with which she discovers the roots, distances and collective constraints of personal memory .

Born into a modest family, she spent her childhood and youth in Yvetot in Upper Normandy, then studied at the University of Rouen and Bordeaux. She went on to become a certified teacher, and then an agrégée in modern literature in 1971. She taught until her retirement in 2000, in order to preserve her writing activity from economic imperatives.

Annie Ernaux made her literary debut in 1974 with Les Armoires vides, an autobiographical novel. In 1984, she won the Prix Renaudot for La Place, also autobiographical.

Her literary work, for the most part autobiographical, has close links with sociology.