Annie Ernaux discusses the writers who influenced her (Céline, Proust, Pavese), and her need to write

Annie Ernaux, who has just published Simple Passion and will win the Nobel Prize in Literature thirty years later, talks about the writers who influenced her, and her need to write.

"I am very touched by your letter, and I thank you for writing to me. Many writers must have influenced me over the years I've been reading... I particularly loved pre-war American novelists, Pavese, Céline, and Proust, but I don't reread often; I prefer to 'discover.' The Russian writer Grossman, whom I quote in Simple Passion, was one of those discoveries. (You must be doing the same, since you discovered me a few days ago...) [...]" She concludes in a postscript, "I don't believe that writing brings happiness; it's just a need, a desire to fulfill. There are periods when I don't write."

Envelope preserved.