This article deals with the autobiographical childhood narrative Enfance (1983) written by Nathalie Sarraute (1900–1999). More specifically, it attempts to analyze the two directions Sarraute criticism took when assessing this particular work in relation to the reading of it as the story of becoming a writer. On the one hand, the narrative was seen as the beginning of something new in Sarraute's writing, on the other as a sophisticated continuation of her exploration of tropisms. Some critics contend that the writing performed by the childhood "I" of the narrative should be seen as the first steps towards becoming a writer, while others aim to show how the child's experiences of writing function as counter examples of how to write according to Sarraute, and thus could not be seen as representing a vocational story. The aim of this article is to show that Sarraute's childhood narrative is the story of un-learning how to write traditionally and an intricate reflection on the function and conception of autobiographical writing.