The Other Girl

The Other GirlBy: Annie Ernaux One Sunday in Yvetot, August 1950. Annie is playing outside in the sun. Her mother steps out of the grocery to chat with a customer, a few metres from her. The two womens conversation is perfectly audible; its scraps become etched forever in Annies memory. Before she was born, her parents had another daughter. She died at the age of six from diphtheria. Annie will never hear another word from her parents about this unknown sister, nor

One Sunday in Yvetot, August 1950. Annie is playing outside in the sun. Her mother steps out of the grocery to chat with a customer, a few metres from her. The two women’s conversation is perfectly audible; its scraps become etched forever in Annie’s memory. Before she was born, her parents had another daughter. She died at the age of six from diphtheria. Annie will never hear another word from her parents about this unknown sister, nor will she ask them a single question about her: their family unit has formed in the image of its vanished predecessor. In The Other Girl, brilliantly translated for the first time into English by Alison L. Strayer, Annie Ernaux explores the meaning of this family secret, and the insurmountable distance that separates the two sisters.

• A key backlist title from the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate about Ernaux discovering she had a sister who died before she was born, translated into English for the first time.

• Fitzcarraldo Editions’ sales for Annie Ernaux have topped 200,000 across print editions.