Summer, 1958, Annie has a job at a summer camp. Annie Ernaux’s autobiographical work Mémoire de fille (A girl’s story), depicts an eighteen year-old, hungry for life. Her first sexual encounter with an older camp counsellor is appallingly brutal. Yet she compels herself to see it as a passionate love affair and tries to sate her desire for him with other men, exposing herself to mockery and humiliation. Looking back on her past, the novelist understands that she was the victim of sexual abuse with lasting impacts. Brought to stage as a gripping monologue performed by Suzanne de Baecque, this story examines the links between female sexuality and patriarchal domination of women’s bodies, and explores the question of how to develop a language of desire beyond the limitations of the male gaze.

Hugues Le Tanneur