Annie Ernaux recounts a relationship with a student thirty years her junior - an experience that transforms her, briefly, back into the 'scandalous girl' of her youth. When she is with him, she replays scenes she has already lived through, feeling both ageless and closer to death.
At once stark and tender, The Young Man is a taut encapsulation of Ernaux's relationship to time, memory and writing.
From the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2022.