Narrative
Childhood
Enfance
Nathalie Sarraute · 1983
Synopsis
Two voices speak to each other. One, the author's, tries to bring back her childhood memories; the other, her double, interrupts her, warns her, doubts what she puts forward and asks her whether she really felt that. From this exchange arise self-contained fragments, which do not follow the order of time and often start from a word overheard: a little girl shared between separated parents, between Russia, Switzerland and Paris, the father, the mother, the father's second wife, and school.
Context
The book was published by Gallimard in 1983; its author was eighty-three years old and had stated a few years earlier that she was incapable of writing her autobiography. It covers her early years, up to the age of eleven or twelve, and was published without any indication of genre. A figure of the Nouveau Roman, reputed to be difficult, she found with it her first great bookshop success, the book seeming more accessible than her novels.
Who it is for
A short narrative in fragments, in no chronological order; each scene can be read on its own, and the dialogue of the two voices sets the tone.
Prizes and reception
Translated into English by Barbara Wright, it appeared in 1984 in New York from Braziller under the title Childhood.
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