The Years

Memory never stops. It pairs the dead with the living, real with imaginary beings, dreams with history.

She strikes a pose and the camera shutter clicks: a child playing in the debris of the Second World War. Click. A student discovering parties and mens bodies. Click. An activist fighting for the right to choose. Click. A wife picking out a velvet sofa. Click. A mother taking her eldest to judo. Click. A lover, seducing a younger man. Click. A grandmother presenting her granddaughter to the camera. Click.

Les Années (The Years) is Annie Ernauxs critically acclaimed masterpiece (Guardian), charting a womans personal and political life against the backdrop of a rapidly changing post-war Europe.

Eline Arbos inventive stage adaptation was premiered as De Jaren by Het Nationale Theater in The Hague, Netherlands, in 2022, with a cast of five women collectively bringing to life an unapologetic portrait of one woman, and a whole continent. Arbo directed her adaptation at the Almeida Theatre, London, in 2024, in an English language version by Stephanie Bain – with reference to translations by Alison L. Strayer and Tanya Leslie. In 2025, The Years transferred to the Harold Pinter Theatre in Londons West End, produced by Sonia Friedman Productions.