The health crisis will not have got the better of all traditions.
If the Goncourt academy had to give up its usual lunch at Drouant, to find itself behind a computer screen by videoconference, it did not derogate from the announcement of three of its literary prizes.
For six years now, it has been bringing together the Goncourt award for the first novel, poetry and short story, in May alongside its famous award in November.
Small change all the same, the name of the winner of the Goncourt Prize for Biography Edmonde Charles-Roux, originally announced in June, has been unveiled.
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The jury, chaired by Didier Decoin, announced in a press release the names of its winners on Tuesday, May 4.
It is therefore Emilienne Malfatto who wins the Goncourt of the First novel with
Que sur toi laments the Tiger
.
She takes over from Maylis Besserie, distinguished last year.
Her work takes place in rural Iraq today and features a young girl having a romantic relationship outside of marriage.
The book is published by Alyzad, a Tunisian publishing house which takes a look "on Arab society, nomadic texts imbued with the seas of the north and the breath of the south, the Balkans and Japan."
A baggage for eternity
It should be noted that the jurors retained "small houses" in their lists, but also French-speaking houses.
Alyzad is one of them, Metropolis, a Swiss publishing company, is another.
Shmuel T. Meyer wins
the Goncourt de la Nouvelle
with
And the War is Over
.
In this work, he interweaves in a poetic language the destinies of characters through historical wars and intimate struggles.
The writer who succeeds Anne Serre crowned for
Au cœur d'un été tout en or
(Mercure de France) faced Sylvain Prudhomme for
Les orages
(L'arbalète Gallimard), Cyril Roger-Lacan for
Last Days
(Grasset) and David Thomas with
Alone Surrounded by Biting Dogs
(Éditions de l'Olivier).
Pauline Dreyfus for her part won the Goncourt Prize for the biography Edmonde Charles-Roux with
Paul Morand
, published by Gallimard. In a removed language, she looks back on the past years of the writer and diplomat by drawing the portrait of a man with often unrecognized facets. In the October 29 issue of
Figaro Littéraire
, our collaborator Éric Neuhoff spoke of it in these words:
“Man in a hurry smells of sulfur and speed, of gin and salt water. His works are bound in full leather in the "Pleiade", baggage for eternity. "
His reward, endowed with 3,800 euros, will be given to him on September 11 in Nancy during the Livre sur la Place. The City will award the writer, who succeeds Thierry Thomas for
Hugo Pratt, trait for trait
(Grasset), up to 4,500 euros.
Also in the running: Marianne Alphant for
César et toi
(POL), José Alvarez for
Helmut & June, crossed portraits
(Grasset), Olivier Mony for
Louis Jouvet
(unpublished folio) and Thomas Sertillanges for
Edmond Rostand, les couleurs du plache
(Atlantica ).
Finally, the jury chose to award its Goncourt de la Poésie Robert Sabatier to the poet Jacques Roubaud, mathematician, writer, essayist, member of OULIPO, "who likes to define himself as a '' composer of mathematics and poetry '' 'for all of his work ”.