Read from "1993" in Things Seen by Annie Ernaux, translated by Jonathan Kaplansky, foreword by Brian Evenson:

"April 8

Condominium meeting. People talk about staircases, basements, etc. Every issue tackled becomes an opportunity for people to show their knowledge, “we need to install meters at such and such a place,” to tell an anecdote “in the building where I lived before,” a story “the other day, the tenant on the fifth floor.” Stories are a need to exist.

Ever since universities have opened in Cergy, students can be seen in the evening at Auchan doing their shopping. Recognizable at the cash by a somewhat ironic distance, spontaneously banding together, not needing to say hello to one another, like people accustomed to seeing each other all day long in class or in the university cafeteria. These are people brought together by shared activities (the same rooms, schedules, interests), fleeting and intense.

April 13

In the RER to Cergy an Asian woman is knitting, a pattern spread out over her knees. It appears very complicated, three balls of wool in various colors on the paper of the pattern and whose strands she takes in turn. I am reading Le Monde, an article on what is happening in Bosnia. In view of this war my activity is not much more useful than hers. Eighteen years ago, in the same way, I must have read an article about the boat people: perhaps she was one. Just before Conflans, she takes out a key ring that works as scissors, cuts the strands, puts away the balls of yarn and the work in her bag, stands up to leave."

Annie Ernaux was born in 1940 in Lillebonne, France. Her autobiographical narrative, La Place,won the Prix Renaudot, and her books, A Woman’s Story and A Man’s Place, were named New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Ernaux’s most recent novel, Les Années, is widely considered one of her greatest works. Jonathan Kaplansky has translated numerous works, including Hélène Dorion's novel Days of Sand and Hélène Rioux's novel Wednesday Night at the End of the World. Brian Evenson is a professor and director of the Literary Arts Program at Brown University. He is the author of Altmann’s Tongue (available in a Bison Books edition) and, most recently, Last Days and Fugue State.

To read a longer excerpt or to purchase Things Seen, visit http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Things-Seen,674199.aspx.