Cover of Happening

Happening

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Happening

By: Annie Ernaux
Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
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Summary

In 1963, Annie Ernaux, 23 and unattached, realizes she is pregnant. Shame arises in her like a plague: Understanding that her pregnancy will mark her and her family as social failures, she knows she cannot keep the child. In a France where abortion was illegal, she attempted, in vain, to self-administer the abortion with a knitting needle. Fearful and desperate, she finally located an abortionist and ended up in a hospital emergency ward where she nearly died.

In Happening, Ernaux sifts through her memories and her journal entries dating from those days. Clearly, cleanly, she gleans the meanings of her experience.

©2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC (P)2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC Art & Literature Authors Genre Fiction Women Women's Fiction
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I have gone through this. I went to a hospital because law couldn’t stop me in my country Iceland. But even so I was so ashamed. Didn’t talk to anyone about it. I bled a lot for a long time. I come from a big family and have given a birth to three boys. I knew that people knew. But nobody said anything to help me. I was married then. My last birth was very difficult. Now they are tidying the law in many countries when it comes to abortion. Annie Ernaux’s book should be translated all over. Thank you

Happening

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