2023-11-07 07:32:57
The most prestigious of the fall awards, the Goncourtis awarded this Tuesday at the Drouant restaurant, as has been the tradition for over a century.
The time of choice has come for the jurors of the Goncourt and other literary prizes, who will have to decide this week among the novels for the 2023 school year. The most prestigious of these autumn prizes, the Goncourt, is awarded on Tuesday, to midday at the Drouant restaurant, as has been the tradition for over a century.
Renaudot, like every year, announces its winner immediately afterwards, in the same place. Monday, the Femina Prize opens this week under the sign of literature in Paris, at the Carnavalet museum. And Thursday, the Médicis Prize which closes it, at the La Méditerranée restaurant.
All these prices are the assurance of boosting sales during the last two months of the year, the most important for booksellers.
It is estimated that on average, a Goncourt Prize sells around 400,000 copies. But that’s just an average. If for example the 2020 Goncourt, L’Anomalie by Hervé Le Tellier, has today exceeded one million copies sold, that of 2022, Vivre vite by Brigitte Giraud, has remained below 300,000.
Reinhardt favori
The order in which these awards are presented – which changes each year – matters. Deciding first gives a jury greater latitude, because it seems impossible to crown the same book one or more days apart.
Neige Sinno, with Triste tigre (POL editions), favorite part of the Femina prize on Monday. Her account of the incest she suffered as a child, coupled with an essay on sexual violence, captured the imagination.
For this Femina 2023, she is facing three men and one woman. And Jean-Baptiste Andrea, with Veiller sur elle, is another well-placed contender. Both are finalists for the Goncourt awarded the next day, with Éric Reinhardt (Sarah, Susanne and the writer) and Gaspard Koenig (Humus).
Among six literary journalists interviewed by the magazine Weekly Books to know their prediction, one sees Neige Sinno winning this Goncourt, while two bet on Jean-Baptiste Andrea, and three are convinced that this is the year of Éric Reinhardt.
This novelist who has been able to build a loyal readership, as evidenced by the crowds he attracts to each public debate, displays at 58 a rather meager track record in literary prizes, with the Renaudot prize for high school students in 2014 for L’Amour et forests. He also has the advantage of belonging to the most influential house of French literature, Gallimard.
“Clivantes”
But, as a Goncourt juror, Pierre Assouline, pointed out in August, his work and his personality are “divisive”. Sarah, Susanne and the writer does not escape this judgment, with an original form of dialogue between an author and a woman transformed into a fictional double, which more or less convinced its readers.
Jean-Baptiste Andrea, a more consensual man, is published by an independent house, L’Iconoclaste. And Veiller sur elle represents in this final of the Goncourt the novelistic invention, even romantic, with a fresco of more than 500 pages which combines the history of Italy in the 20th century, a thwarted love and the passion for art.
The ambitious Humus by Gaspard Koenig (Éditions de L’Observatoire) would create a surprise by winning the Goncourt. But this very current novel about the torments of agronomy students for the future of our planet has many assets to please the Renaudot Prize jury.
Among the other Renaudot favorites: Sorj Chalandon with L’Enragé. It is published by Grasset, a house which had already won this prize in 2022. Le Médicis, finally, still has eight contenders, including Éric Reinhardt and Neige Sinno, but also young revelations like the Moroccan Salma El Moumni or the Franco-Swiss Elisa Shua Dusapin.
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