Simple Passion
In this brief autobiographical work, Annie Ernaux describes a period when her life was given over to waiting for a married man, a foreign diplomat she calls A, and to the desire that consumed her. She records the texture of obsession with clinical honesty, the hours spent anticipating his calls and visits, the way ordinary life narrowed to a single focus, and the emptiness that followed his departures. Ernaux strips away romance and self justification, examining her own experience as if it were a subject of study. Written in the spare, exact style she became known for, the book treats private feeling as worthy of plain documentation. Ernaux later won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and Simple Passion is one of the short, precise works that defined her approach to memory and desire.
What you might want to know about Simple Passion
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Annie Ernaux writes a short, unflinching account of her all consuming affair with a married foreign man.
It is autobiographical, drawn directly from Ernaux's own affair, in the blunt personal style she is known for.
Yes. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2022 for her body of autobiographical work.
Simple Passion was written by Annie Ernaux, published in 1991 by Seven Stories Press.
Simple Passion is 64 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Simple Passion takes most readers under an hour to finish.
Simple Passion is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.