Es ist ein Mädchen

Just as powerful as Annie Ernaux. "Do you have children?" the father is asked. "No, I have two girls," he replies. This scene is one of the first memories of a woman growing up in bourgeois circumstances in Rouen around 1960. What follows is a life that seems exemplary for her generation: Laurence frees herself from the confines of her parental home, experiences sexual freedom but also violence, loses a son at birth, and gives birth to a daughter. And with this daughter, who defies all role assignments, something opens up – also for Laurence and her life as a woman. From the particularity of a woman's fate, this cleverly constructed novel derives what generally follows after it is said: "It's a girl.".