More than 200 writers helped by the state during the summer to deal with the health crisis

More than 200 writers or authors have benefited from "

" from the state to compensate for the loss of income due to the health crisis, the National Book Center said on Thursday.

The CNL said in a press release that it had distributed to 209 authors, between July and September, a total of 761,625 euros of this aid.

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This was supposed to guarantee a certain continuity of income in a period marked by "

".

Capped at 9,000 euros, it amounted to an average of 3,644 euros.

Support the diversity of book production

No names of beneficiaries were disclosed, the CNL simply detailing their profile.

56% of them are men, they are on average 49 years old, and authors 25% of novels, 22% of children's literature, and 21% of comics, among others.

A public establishment of the Ministry of Culture, the CNL's mission is to support the diversity of book production in France.

It regularly distributes a lot of aid to authors, translators or publishers to bring to fruition works which, according to purely economic criteria, might never see the light of day.

In this case, the names are available in the CNL's annual activity report.

In 2020, this aid was supplemented by an emergency aid fund for authors which had distributed nearly 2.3 million euros to nearly 700 beneficiaries, 53% of women.

But the number of authors reached by the Covid-19 crisis, because of the disruptions caused by the bookstore closures in 2020, is obviously much higher, and impossible to assess, as denounced by the League of Professional Authors. , created in 2018.