This article attempts to identify the innovative qualities of the writing of Annie Ernaux, and their continuing relevance for feminisms. It discusses both the new literary forms and styles she creates, and the extent to which her writing contributes to the work of intersectionality in its representation of class, gender, sexuality, 'race' and ethnicity. The exceptional nature of Ernaux's foregrounding of social class in the French context, and its troubling nature, perhaps in a broader sense, is discussed through an analysis of its impact on the shape and style of the writing. There is some discussion of Ernaux's popularity in France as a writer and of the critical attention she receives in France and in university French departments abroad. The article raises the question of Ernaux's absence from the canon of French feminist works created by anglophone feminist theorists, and taken up by university departments of English and critical theory.