Translated from the original French, by Alison L. Strayer, with remarkable insight and understanding of the original text, this ‘autobiography’ is an extraordinary piece of work. I use quotes around ‘autobiography’ because this book is so much more than that. It’s a brilliant mix of life story, history, sociology, philosophy, meditation, and poetry.

Although some of the events described and named here are unknown to me as a Brit, I was nevertheless able to access the emotions behind them. But much of the book is international in flavour, so the language and even the cultural issues are secondary when compared to the sheer beauty and lucid depiction of the world seen through these eyes.

It’s no surprise that the author is a Nobel Laureate. The depth and breadth of events, cultural references, individuals, politics, and history are astounding. Carrying an emotional impact rarely encountered these days (the translation was made in 2017), the book caused me tears of distress, gasps of surprise, smiles of delight, and occasional outbursts of memory-induced laughter. It evoked long-buried recollections of events that occurred during my early years right through to the beginning of this century, allowing me to relive so many moments otherwise locked away in a mind too full of happenings.

Some of the sentences are deceptively simple while conjuring memories of events with startling clarity. Others are complex but readily understood evocations of how we felt, what motivated us, why we did what we did.

Although this is a single life, and that of a French woman, it is so deeply immersed in the everyday, the unusual, and the utterly unique as to somehow combine its content into something completely universal. It is a book that will stay with me for a very long time.

[Any review is a personal opinion. No reviewer can represent the view of anyone else. The best we can manage is an honest reaction to any given book.]