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Happening

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Happening

By: Annie Ernaux
Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
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About this listen

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 Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Women Women's Fiction Pregnancy
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A brilliantly written account of getting an abortion at a time and place when it was illegal. Abortions will never be stopped, only safe abortions will. Also found the descriptions of Paris very atmospheric. Highly recommend.

An excellent read

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