num_pages: 96
description: In 1963 Annie Ernaux 23 and unattached realizes she is pregnant. Shame arises in her like a plague: Understanding that her pregnancy will mark her and her family as social failures she knows she cannot keep that child.This is the story written forty years later of a trauma Ernaux never overcame. In a France where abortion was illegal she attempted in vain to self-administer the abortion with a knitting needle. Fearful and desperate she finally located an abortionist and ends up in a hospital emergency ward where she nearly dies.In Happening Ernaux sifts through her memories and her journal entries dating from those days. Clearly cleanly she gleans the meanings of her experience.Now an award-winning film by Audrey DiwanWinner of the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film FestivalOfficial Selection of the Sundance Film Festival
language: English
title: Happening
publisher: Seven Stories Press