Writing as a palimpsest: the metagenetic space in L'Événement, from Annie Ernaux

Abstract

Composed by the confluence of distinct scriptural layers that overlap without undoing one another, the autobiographical account L’Événement (2000) by Annie Ernaux comes from a work of memory and writing aimed at baring the clandestine abortion underwent by the author in 1964. On the one hand, the narrative incorporates fragments from Ernaux’s personal archive – since she cites the diary and the agenda kept during the narrated events – and, on the other, it incorporates passages destinated to reflections regarding the book’s textual elaboration, which echo the language used in the writing journal L’Atelier Noir (2011). This one reveals the hesitations leading to L’Événement’s composition in the year of 1999, later revisited in the autobiography Le jeune homme (2022). In this regard, this article relies on the metaphor of the palimpsest to explore the textual overlapping that takes place in L’Événement and to grasp its relevance to the narrative’s creation. Therefore, it investigates Ernaux’s literary project and assesses the possibilities of interpretation opened by a genetic study that is decentralized of the autograph document, ultimately analyzing the abortion account through its relationship with the referenced texts.