Annie Ernaux

The French author of three New York Times Notable Books of the Year presents a novel written in the form of journal entries over seven years that records the tumultuous life of random strangers. Tour. IP.

Exteriors

Kat Albanese

Contrary to a real theatre, members of the audience here avoid looking at the actors and affect not to hear their performance. Embarrassed to see real life making a spectacle of itself, and not the opposite.

It is outside my own life that my past existence lies: in passengers commuting on the Métro or the RER; in shoppers glimpsed on escalators at Auchan or in the Galleries Lafayette; in complete strangers who cannot know that they possess part of my story; in faces and bodies which I shall never see again. In the same way, I myself, anonymous among the bustling crowds on streets and in department stores, must secretly play a role in the lives of others.

Exteriors quotes

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