Frédéric Pajak, first winner of the Flaubert Prize in Trouville-Sur-Mer

The red carpet rolled out in front of the Hotel Flaubert de Trouville, took the rain. The wind blew hard, tormenting the umbrellas. A time conducive to intense melancholy! But it would have taken more to discourage the owners of the hotel, Jean-Philippe Cartier, head of the hotel group H8 Collection and H8 Invest, and Pierre-Antoine Capton, boss of the Mediawan group. These two self-taught artists with resounding success joined forces to buy, in 2021, at the time of the pandemic, the beautiful Hotel Flaubert, created in 1936 and whose façade is a huge fresco painted by Savignac. This jewel of the seaside resort, at the foot of the large beach saw Flaubert, Proust and Marguerite Duras, who lived a few hundred meters away, in Roches Noires.

For Pierre-Antoine Capton, this prize was obvious: "I am very touched to be able to create a new event in Trouville. " With his partner and friend Jean-Philipe Cartier, he launched the idea of a prize in tribute to Flaubert. In partnership with Le Figaro, Maison Ruinart and the town hall of Trouville, he set up a jury composed of writers David Foenkinos, Guy Birenbaum, Emilie Frèche, Agathe Ruga, journalists Isabelle Giordano (General Delegate of the BNP Foundation), Nicolas Ungemuth, (Deputy Culture Editor of Figaro Magazine) and Bruno Corty, (Editor-in-Chief of Le Figaro littéraire). , Fabien Vallerian (Art and Culture Director of Maison Ruinart), Isabelle Drong, (Deputy Mayor of Trouville in charge of culture) and Jean-Philippe Pérou, bookseller at L'Usage du Papier in Trouville.

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On April 18, the jury selected five titles published since the beginning of 2023. Double V by Laura Ulonati (Actes Sud), L'envers des ombres by Céline Navarre (Gallimard), Défaire l'amour by Clarisse Gorokhoff (Robert Laffont), Avalanche by Raphaël Haroche and Dans le calme du soir by Frédéric Pajak (Noir sur Blanc). Very quickly, the jury chose two titles: Laura Ulonat's beautiful novel about Virgina Woolf and her sister Vanessa and Frédéric Pajak's beautiful book. Friday, May 12, at 18 p.m., the bar of the Hotel Flaubert welcomed the jury, in the presence of Sylvie de Gaetano, mayor of Trouville, who already organizes a book fair in the fall. President Foenkinos, proud to recall that he defended a master's degree in literature on the author of Madame Bovary, announced that the first Flaubert Prize was awarded to Frédéric Pajak, author of Dans le calme du soir.

A line of artists

A Franco-Swiss cartoonist, writer and publisher, Pajak, 67, is the author of an important work that includes a series of nine volumes grouped under the title Uncertain Manifesto. The third volume of this series of literary works, mixing texts and drawings, autobiography and tributes to great writers or artists, was crowned in 2014 by the Prix Médicis essai and the seventh in 2019 by the Prix Goncourt de la biographie.

Today Frédéric Pajak is crowned by the Flaubert Prize, an author whose correspondence he especially loves even if he has read the novels, he who reads little. Before pocketing a cheque for 3,000 euros and enjoying a week of residency at the Hotel Flaubert, the winner gave a moving speech in which he recalled his grandfather Jean Pajak, "an obscure Pole stranded in the coal mines of northern France" who saved up in order to attend classes at the School of Fine Arts. As for Frédéric Pajak's father, Jacques, he was also a painter. His death in a car accident at the age of 35, decided the career of his young son: "The night that followed, I heard his voice, it filled the darkness of my room. I knew that night that I too would become a painter-draughtsman.

In the father's library, the thousands of books, including those of Robert Pinget, a friend of the Pajak family and Beckett, intimidated young Frederick. Referring to the winning book, the winner said that "it followed the nine volumes of the Uncertain Manifesto, a long journey through Europe, the Sahara, Russia... where we meet Walter Benjamin, Ezra Pound, Emily Dickinson, Marina Tsvetaeva, Pessoa. This new volume is an extension of it even if no great writer or artist appears on it. It is a story of scattered memories, unforgettable cities, the ghosts of my friends. It's the book I dreamed of when I was a kid...

After celebrating the winner until the night, the creators of the prize, the jury, the winner met Saturday 13 at the bookstore L'Usage du papier by Jean-Philippe Pérou, rue des Bains, where, the rain having given way to the sun, Frédéric Pajak, David Foenkinos, Emily Frèche and Guy Birenbaum, signed their books.

The jury and Frédéric Pajak surrounded by Pierre-Antoine Capton, Jean-Philippe Cartier and Sylvie de Gaetano, Mayor of Trouville. The Eye of Deauville.