In her latest work, Annie Ernaux recounts a relationship with a student thirty years her junior �?" an experience that transforms her, briefly, back into the �?~scandalous girl�?T of her youth. When she is with him, she replays scenes she has already lived through, feeling both ageless and closer to death. Laid like a palimpsest on the present, the past�?Ts immediacy pushes her to take a decisive step in her writing �?" producing, in turn, the need to expunge her lover. At once stark and tender, The Young Man is a taut encapsulation of Ernaux�?Ts relationship to time, memory and writing.; 40 pages; 20/09/2023