Annie Ernaux’s The Other Girl might be the latest of the Nobel Prize-winning author’s works to be published by Fitzcarraldo, but it is far from her most recent. The Other Girl, translated into English for the first time by Alison L Strayer, was first published in French in 2011.
It is a letter to Ernaux’s dead sister, whose life and tragic death was a poorly kept secret by Erneaux’s parents; one which she discovered by overhearing a conversation between her mother and a relative stranger. In some ways The Other Girl is reminiscent of Maggie Nelson’s The Red Parts, as it shares a curiosity for family members that the author never knew, while demonstrating grief’s rippling effects.
Ernaux, with her carefully selected words, questions whether her sister, who family members have portrayed as a perfect child, was actually as glowing as those alive insist she was. There is a dark wit to Ernaux’s assessment as she notes that in every photo of her sister, she presents dejected expressions to the camera.
The brief piece of work, both poignant and personal – as is Ernaux’s oeuvre – asks why we insist on remembering the dead in such a positive light, what purpose is served by comparing a living child to a dead one and how living in the shadow of grief affected Ernaux’s understanding of herself.
The Other Girl by Annie Ernaux , translated by Alison L Strayer is out now (Fitzcarraldo, £8.99).
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