Return to Yvto

This book is based on a recording of Annie Ernaux's performance in Yvto, the town of her childhood in rural Normandy, where the writer arrived at the invitation of the municipality in 2012 — decades after Yvto existed for her only in memory and writing. The town, along with its residents and customs, is a key character in Ernaux's books. It exists at the intersection of the personal and the social: the trials of growing up here are inseparable from the realization of class inequality, while writing and literature walk the line between the vernacular language of workers and the refined "language of the enemy." The book includes letters from Annie Ernaux, diary fragments, photographs, and an interview with researcher Marguerite Cornier regarding her work.