Thoughts on Place: A Conversation with Annie Ernaux

in the author's home at Cergy-Pontoise. 1 Our intention was to use an overarching theme -that of place -as a guide or fil rouge allowing us to garner Ernaux's current thoughts and feelings on a range of subjects that have played a pivotal role throughout her writings and her life.In a three-way conversation that lasted throughout the afternoon, we explored the significant places and environments that recur in Ernaux's writings, from the café-épicerie of her childhood to the places and spaces of her adult life. 2 We explored the author's sense of her place in social, cultural, and political terms.We discussed her perception of the social place of her (woman's) body, and of the body as place.We also considered the place that contemporary society allocates to older people and the author's attitudes towards her own ageing.The latter development was generated not only by our own interest in how Ernaux treats ageing in certain of her writings, but also by her intervention just prior to our interview in an important public event about ageing in France today.This was the inaugural event of the Conseil national autoproclamé de la vieillesse, of which a highlight was a plenary conversation about ageing between Ernaux, the historian Michelle Perrot, and Laure Adler. 3 Our interview as published here in French Studies includes material from three of the overarching headings that we explored with Ernaux: 'La place sociale, culturelle et politique'; 'La place du corps/ le corps comme place'; and 'La place des vieux/ vieilles et de la vieillesse'.We have opted to focus upon material with which many of Ernaux's readers may not yet be familiar, including her responses to contemporary