The Possession

Published in the UK for the first time, The Possession is a striking meditation on jealousy and a major work by the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. 

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‘The strangest thing about jealousy is that it can populate an entire city – the whole world – with a person you may never have met.’ These first words set the framework for The Possession, a striking portrait of a woman after a love affair has ended. Annie Ernaux pulls the reader through every step of jealousy, of a woman’s need to know who has replaced her in a lost beloved’s life. Ernaux’s writing, characteristically gorgeous in its precision, depicts the all too familiar human tendency to seek control and certainty after rejection.