In her spare, stark style, Annie Ernaux documents the desires and indignities of a human heart ensnared in an all-consuming passion. Blurring the line between fact and fiction, an unnamed narrator attempts to plot the emotional and physical course of her two-year relationship with a married foreigner where every word, event, and person either provides a connection with her beloved or is subject to her cold indifference. With courage and exactitude, she seeks the truth behind an existence lived entirely for someone else, and, in the pieces of its aftermath, she is able to find it.

「昨年の九月以降わたしは、ある男性を待つこと──彼が電話をかけてくるのを、そして家へ訪ねてくるのを待つこと以外何ひとつしなくなった」

別れた男が他の女と暮らすと知り、狂ったように特定しようとしたが－－。妄執に取り憑かれた自己を冷徹に描く「嫉妬」。中絶が違法だった時代のフランス。

Tokyo resident Keiko Furukara has never fit in - neither in her family, nor in school - but when at the age of 18 she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of national convenience store chain Smile Mart, she realizes instantly that she has found her purpose in life. Delighted to be able to exist in a place where the rules of social interaction are crystal clear (many are laid out line-by-line in the store's manual), Keiko does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and mode of speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a "normal" person excellently, more or less.

This extraordinary evocation of a grown daughter’s attachment to her mother - and of both women’s strength and resiliency - recounts Annie’s attempt to first help her mother recover from Alzheimer’s disease and, then, when that proves futile, bear witness to the older woman’s gradual decline and her own experience as a daughter losing a beloved parent. I Remain in Darkness is a new high-water mark for Ernaux, surging with raw emotional power and her sublime ability to use language to apprehend her own life’s particular music.