Reading Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux, Jerry Pinto’s new novel, Mrinal Pande on Hindi journalism and more 

Welcome to this edition of The Hindu on Books Newsletter.

Welcome to this edition of  The Hindu on Books Newsletter.

Last Thursday, the Nobel Prize for Literature was announced and this year it went to the French writer Annie Ernaux, who had been on the contenders’ list for years. A memoirist, who has written about her life in many different ways, Ernaux, born in 1940, grew up in a small town in Normandy where her parents had a grocery store and café. In her mostly autobiographical work, she looks closely at gender, class, language, memory, love and loss, pursuing her themes as if she is seeking the truth.  Ernaux, an “ethnologist of herself”, skirts fiction and puts events of her life under the scanner. She began a probe of her country background with her debut novel,  Les armoires vides (1974; translated into English by Carol Sanders,  Cleaned Out, 1990). It tells the story of 20-year-old Denise Lesur who suffers in the aftermath of an illegal abortion. Later, Ernaux would revisit this trauma in several of her autobiographical works, Simple Passion,  translated by Tanya Leslie, in 1993, in  L’événement, also translated by Leslie,  Happening, in 2001 or  A Girl’s Story in 2016. Her literary success came with her fourth novel,  A Man’s Place, in 1983, a portrait of her father. In 1987, she wrote  A Woman’s Story about her mother; she would recount her parents’ life again in  Shame a decade later, beginning the story with a devastating line: “My father tried to kill my mother one Sunday in June, in the early afternoon.” The Nobel committee, awarding her the 2022 Prize “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory,” says Ernaux believes in the liberating force of writing. “Her work is uncompromising and written in plain language, scraped clean,” revealing the agony of the experience of class, describing shame, humiliation, jealousy or inability to see who you are with great courage. Asked which of her books would be a good starting point for people unaware of her work, she said,  The Years “could bring together everyone.” Translated by Alison L. Strayer and shortlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize, Ernaux recalls her life from 1941 to 2006 in the ambitious book, because “all the images will disappear.” 

In reviews, we read Jerry Pinto’s new coming-of-age novel, a biography of George Fernandes, an anthology on the hills and more. We also talk to corporate honcho R. Seshasayee who has written a debut book of fiction and Mrinal Pande whose new book traces the history of Hindi journalism in India. 

Jerry Pinto’s  The Education of Yuri (Speaking Tiger) follows the trials and tribulations of a precocious 15-year-old growing up in the Bombay of the early 1980s. It takes in its sweep the liberalisation push, the rise of Hindutva and the right wing, and the chipping away of the secular heart of India. But for Yuri, uppermost in his mind as he begins college, is whether he will find a friend. When he does find a friend, the easy-going Muzammil Merchant, that upmarket Peddar Road world is far away from Yuri’s Catholic upbringing in Mahim. In her review, Janice Pariat says it is bildungsroman at is best. “We are pulled easily along by Pinto’s magical prose,” a language “fresh, flexible, surprising.” In the way that many ‘growing up’ novels are structured,  The Education of Yuri employs steadfast linear storytelling, says Pariat. “As readers, we are privy to Yuri’s thoughts, his bits of amateur poetry, his scribbled notebook entries. Who am I, he often asks. What Pinto does, and does so well, is infuse this growing-up tale with heart and much humour.” 

Much to like in this growing-up tale: ‘The Education of Yuri’ by Jerry Pinto, reviewed by Janice Pariat 

Late socialist leader and former Union Minister George Fernandes had a storied career almost mirroring the contemporary political history of India. Rahul Ramagundam’s  The Life and Times of George Fernandes (Allen Lane), therefore, is of interest not just in terms of one man’s life and political journey, but the coterminous streams of events and ideology that flowed with it. 

Fernandes, born in Mangalore, who cut his teeth in politics in Bombay as a trade union leader, and was a Member of Parliament from Muzzaffarpur in Bihar, traversed India geographically. He also explored the ideological spectrum -- his politics may have been largely socialist but he was also compatible with the BJP as an ally for many years. The biography takes an exhaustive look at life, and also the “times” he lived in, as the title suggests, says Nistula Hebbar in her review. “What has intrigued most people is his alliance with the BJP and the ease with which he became a part of the National Democratic Alliance, becoming the chairperson of the alliance too.” Ramagundam says anti-Congressism directed his every move -- for Fernandes, the personal became political.