In October last year, while I was queuing at the checkout with my trolley, I recognized one of my former students. Or rather I remembered that the cashier had been my student five or six years earlier. I couldn’t recall her name or which class she’d been in. When it was my turn, just to say something, I asked her: ‘How are you doing? Do you like it here?’ Yes yes she replied. After she had registered the drinks and tinned food, embarrassed: ‘It didn’t work out at the technical school.’ She seemed to think that I still remembered her history. But I had forgotten why she had been sent to a technical college and which stream they had put her in. I said goodbye. She was already on to the next customer, moving the stuff along with her left hand while the right jabbed mechanically at the cash register.

November 1982–June 1983 77 78 79

1 Certificat d’aptitude au professorat de l’enseignement du second degré, the secondary teachers’ training certificate. After obtaining their licence (equivalent of a BA), applicants take a one-year course, followed by a probationary year when they work as trainee teachers – stagiaires.

2 ‘Piot’ is the Norman word for ‘turkey’. Literally: ‘You big turkey.’

3 A round, flat cake made of puff pastry and filled with almond paste, traditionally consumed on Twelfth Night and containing a lucky charm. The person who gets this charm is proclaimed king and given a gold paper crown.

4 ‘Bunch of pigs’.

5 ‘C’est le tort chez moi’: something along the lines of ‘it is my failing, it is my greatest fault’, but also a pun on ‘tort chez moi / torchez-moi’, ‘my failing / wipe my arse’. ‘À demain, à deux pieds’: literally ‘see you tomorrow, on two feet’, but also a pun on ‘à demain / à deux mains’, ‘see you tomorrow / on two feet’.

6 ‘Prof’: abbreviation of professor. ‘Dirlo’: abbreviation of ‘directeur’, headteacher. ‘Bouquin’: slang for ‘book’.

7 The French secondary school system, collège, starts with sixième, the British equivalent of year 7, at age 11. From that point the school years are numbered on a decreasing scale. Troisième is the equivalent of year 10 in the British system.

8 ‘flirt’ has the same meaning in English; ‘être un crack’: to be a champ, an ace.

About the Author

Born in 1940, Annie Ernaux grew up in Normandy, studied at Rouen University, and later taught at secondary school. From 1977 to 2000, she was a professor at the Centre National d’Enseignement par Correspondance. Her books, in particular A Man’s Place and A Woman’s Story, have become contemporary classics in France. The Years won the Prix Renaudot in France in 2008 and the Premio Strega in Italy in 2016. In 2017, Annie Ernaux was awarded the Marguerite Yourcenar Prize for her life’s work. A Man’s Place is her fifth title to be published by Fitzcarraldo Editions.

Tanya Leslie was the first translator of Annie Ernaux into English and translated a number of her works, including A Woman’s Story (1991), A Man’s Place (1992), Simple Passion (1993), Shame (1998), I Remain in Darkness (1999) and Happening (2001).