For its first edition, the Goncourt detainees, an initiative led by the National Book Center (CNL), was awarded Thursday to Sarah Jollien-Fardel for her first novel
Her favorite
.
The
“national delegates have chosen to award the first Goncourt prisoner prize to Sarah Jollien-Fardel for her novel
Her favorite
published by Sabine Wespieser”
, announces the CNL in a press release.
In
Her Favorite
, Sarah Jollien-Fardel, born in Switzerland and author of her first novel at the age of 51, tells the story of a mountain girl from Valais who seeks to rebuild herself after being persecuted throughout her childhood by her father.
She also won the Prix du Roman Fnac 2022.
In the literary Figaro, the journalist Sébastien Lapaque analyzes:
“
His favorite
has the color of autofiction, the taste of autofiction, but it is 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.
Created in 2022, the Goncourt prisoner prize is carried by the National Book Center and the prison administration, under the high patronage of the Goncourt Academy.
A total of 500 prisoners in France take part in this initiative.
The national jury was drawn this year from 31 penitentiary establishments (detention centers and remand centres).
