"My father tried to kill my mother one Sunday in June, in the early afternoon," begins Shame, the probing story of the 12 year old girl who will become the author herself, and the single traumatic memory that will echo and resonate throughout her life.

With the emotionally rich voice of great fiction and the diamond-sharp analytical eye of a scientist, Annie Ernaux provides a powerful reflection on experience and the power of violent memory to endure through time, to determine the course of a life.