New arrivals at the Goncourt Academy. Novelist Camille Laurens and essayist Pascal Bruckner were chosen Tuesday as new members of the jury for the most prestigious literary prize in the French-speaking world.
"The Goncourt academics, unanimously, called among them this Tuesday, February 11, Camille Laurens and Pascal Bruckner" in replacement of Virginie Despentes and Bernard Pivot, the company said in a press release.
Novelist and philosopher, Pascal Bruckner notably received the Renaudot Prize in 1997 for "The Beauty Thieves" and the Medici Prize for Essay in 1995 for "The Temptation of Innocence". In addition to his activities as a writer, Pascal Bruckner is an editor at Grasset.
Aggregated in modern literature, Camille Laurens received the 2000 Femina Prize for her novel "Dans ces bras-là", and was a member of the Femina jury before joining that of Goncourt. It is translated into around thirty languages.
Departure of Bernard Pivot and Virginie Despentes
Virginie Despentes, youngest of the jury, left the academy last January, in order to have more time to write. His resignation came a month after that of his emblematic president, Bernard Pivot.
Become member of honor of the academy, the man of letters had also decided to withdraw from the prestigious jury "to find a free and full use of his time".