After a first list of 30 books unveiled on July 13, and a second of 5 authors on July 31, the Fnac prize jury, made up of 800 members, 400 subscribers and 400 Fnac booksellers, finally revealed its winner.
It was Sarah Jollien-Fardel who won the Roman Fnac prize for her first novel entitled
Her Favorite
(Éditions Sabine Wespieser).
She faced
The people of Bilbao are born where they want,
by Maria Larrea, published by Grasset
;
Who will remember Phily-Jo?,
by Marcus Malte, published by Éditions Zulma;
Make the earth explode soon,
by Karl Marlantes, Éditions Calmann-Lévy and
Les Enfants endormis,
by Anthony Passeron, published by Éditions Globe.
"The gift of storytelling is a marked trait among the Valaisans"
Sarah Jollien Fardel
The first novelist, born in 1971 in a village in the district of Hérens, in Valais, tells in a book between story and autofiction the story of Jeanne, her memories, the savagery of her father, the silence of her loved ones as well as the suicide of her sister who prevented her from living in her Swiss hamlet.
Thirty years later, established in Lausanne, the narrator seems to have found peace.
But is this really the case?
In the forthcoming September 8 issue of Le Figaro littéraire, journalist Sébastien Lapaque analyzes:
“His favorite
has the color of autofiction, the taste for autofiction, but it's not autofiction.
We understand this by reading the last page of the book, where the novelist sounds a cymbal, like Alfred Hitchcock at the end of a thriller.
Respecting the codes of fictional narration, Sarah Jollien-Fardel has endeavored to bring to life a series of good and bad, happy and unhappy characters.
This, as we find in fairy tales.
Sarah Jollien-Fardel, in an interview with Le Figaro, recalls how much the narrative genre marked her childhood.
“Tales have been very important to us.
But that was long before I was born, in my grandmother's or my mother's time, when there was no television.
As a child, I loved when my mother or my grandmother told me about it.
I had a runaway imagination and myself, I always loved telling stories.
The gifts of storytellers are a marked trait among the Valaisans.
They express themselves instinctively.”
Last year, the prize was awarded to Jean-Baptiste Del Amo for
Le Fils de l'homme,
published by Gallimard.