Ethnographic writing of Annie Ernaux and Jean Rouaud

Kosova Yu. A.

This article examines the main features of autobiographical narrative in A. Ernaux and J. Rouaud's works, particularly in La Place and Les Hommes illustres. It highlights the hybridity of their works, which neither quite corresponds to the standards of traditional autobiography, nor to those of autofiction in vogue in French literature at the turn of the centuries. ' "L'écriture plate" (flat writing) by Annie Ernaux is at the crossroads of literature, history and sociology. Without giving up the genre of the novel, J. Rouaud uses fiction as a tool for seeking his own and other people's truth. A. Ernaux and J. Rouaud are considered to be ethnographic writers. Subjectivity is linked to an awareness of the family and collective past. Both authors collect objective traces of the passing era, seeking to grasp the meaning of the social, cultural and economic transformations which affected the French province in the first half of the 20th century. In their indirect autobiographies, returning to oneself involves the reappropriation of the father's life, which is sociologically, geographically and historically determined. We analyze the stylistic characteristics shared by those writers and likely to allow us to label their works as ethnographic writing: the concept of "place" in the titles of the two books, the prevalence of the personal pronoun "we", the depersonalisation of toponyms, various means of creating the polyphonic narrative.

Keywords:autobiographical writing, memory, autofiction, history, subjectivity, ethnographic writing, French province