3.0
Getting Lost
ByPublisher Description
WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE
The diary of one of France’s most important, award-winning writers during the year she had a passionate and secret love affair with a Russian diplomat
Getting Lost is the diary Annie Ernaux kept during the year and a half she had a secret love affair with a younger, married man, a Russian diplomat. Her novel, Simple Passion, was based on this affair, but here her writing is immediate, unfiltered.
In these diaries it is 1989 and Annie is divorced with two grown sons, living outside of Paris and nearing fifty. Her lover escapes the city to see her there and Ernaux seems to survive only in expectation of these encounters, saying “his desire for me is the only thing I can be sure of.” She cannot write, she trudges distractedly through her various other commitments in the world, she awaits his next call; she lives only to feel desire and for the next rendezvous. When he is gone and the desire has faded, she feels that she is a step closer to death.
Lauded for her spare prose, Ernaux here removes all artifice, her writing pared down to its most naked and vulnerable. Getting Lost is as strong a book as any that she has written, a haunting, desperate view of strong and successful woman who seduces a man only to lose herself in love and desire.
The diary of one of France’s most important, award-winning writers during the year she had a passionate and secret love affair with a Russian diplomat
Getting Lost is the diary Annie Ernaux kept during the year and a half she had a secret love affair with a younger, married man, a Russian diplomat. Her novel, Simple Passion, was based on this affair, but here her writing is immediate, unfiltered.
In these diaries it is 1989 and Annie is divorced with two grown sons, living outside of Paris and nearing fifty. Her lover escapes the city to see her there and Ernaux seems to survive only in expectation of these encounters, saying “his desire for me is the only thing I can be sure of.” She cannot write, she trudges distractedly through her various other commitments in the world, she awaits his next call; she lives only to feel desire and for the next rendezvous. When he is gone and the desire has faded, she feels that she is a step closer to death.
Lauded for her spare prose, Ernaux here removes all artifice, her writing pared down to its most naked and vulnerable. Getting Lost is as strong a book as any that she has written, a haunting, desperate view of strong and successful woman who seduces a man only to lose herself in love and desire.
Download the free Fable app

Stay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
Rate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
Curate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesGetting Lost Reviews
3.0
“Sentí como si leyera mi diario porque escribimos de manera muy similar. Desafortunadamente, me identifiqué con muchos de los sentimientos de la autora, esas dudas, esa inseguridad y el que la felicidad dependa de ver y estar con otra persona (que no siente de la misma manera). Yo creo que si hace 10 años hubiera tenido un diario, sería muy parecido a este libro, hasta la letra del hombre: “S”!! Qué loco. Fue muy frustrante y me daban ganas de decirle: amiga sal de ahí!!! Pero estuve ahí una vez así que entiendo que uno se aferra a cualquier migaja.
Me lo eché como en tres días porque está muy ligerito de leer. La verdad no recuerdo cómo di con él, pero lo tenía en mi kindle y no sabía de qué iba. Estuvo bien para pasar el rato, pero no es un libro que te cambie la vida o algo por el estilo.”
About Annie Ernaux
ANNIE ERNAUX is the author of some twenty works of fiction and memoir, winner of the Prix Renaudot for A Man's Place, and of the Marguerite Yourcenar Prize for her body of work, and recently the winner of the International Strega Prize and the French-American Translation Prize and shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize for The Years. She is now considered by many to be France's most important literary voice. ALISON L. STRAYER is a Canadian writer and translator Her work has been shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for Literature and for Translation, the Grand Prix du livre de Montreal, and the Prix litteraire France-Quebec. She lives in Paris.
Other books by Annie Ernaux
Start a Book Club
Start a public or private book club with this book on the Fable app today!FAQ
Do I have to buy the ebook to participate in a book club?
Why can’t I buy the ebook on the app?
How is Fable’s reader different from Kindle?
Do you sell physical books too?
Are book clubs free to join on Fable?
How do I start a book club with this book on Fable?









