Annie Ernaux - Uma Paixão Simples

On one side, a cultured, independent, divorced woman with grown children.

On the other, a married, foreign, younger man for whom she completely loses her head. And for whom she waits, day after day.

If the theme seems trivial, the way the two years of this "simple passion" are told is not at all: in her direct, sharp style, devoid of shame and judgment, Annie Ernaux blurs the thin line between fiction and autobiography and puts in the narrator's voice the confidences of the story of a relationship that takes over everything, that enraptures and degrades, a source of the greatest happiness and the most painful loneliness.

To live something like this will perhaps be the greatest privilege of existence. Released in 1991, A Simple Passion surprised the French literary scene, breaking the stereotypes of the sentimental novel with its eroticism and honesty. In 2020, it was adapted for film by Danielle Arbid.