Shame

by Annie Ernaux

People were continually spying on each other. It was essential to learn about other people’s lives, so that they could be talked about,

It was normal to feel ashamed: I saw it as an inescapable fatality resulting from my parents’ occupation, their financial troubles, their working-class background and the way we generally behaved. And the events of that Sunday in June. Shame became a new way of living for me. I don’t think I was even aware of it, it had become part of my own body.