Yesterday was the highpoint of the French literary award season, as there was a one-two punch of prize-announcements with the biggest of them all, the prix Goncourt and the Renaudot, revealed.
The Goncourt went to Le sermon sur la chute de Rome, by Jérôme Ferrari; see, for example, the Actes Sud publicity page. In some pretty good timing: MacLehose Press has just brought out his Where I Left My Soul (in the UK); see their publicity page.
More interesting was the way the Renaudot played out -- showing there are still ways to make these literary prizes more ...bizarre exciting ?
Notre-Dame du Nil by Scholastique Mukasonga took the prize -- which came as somewhat of a surprise, since it wasn't one of the books on the final shortlist for the prize. Indeed, it took six out of ten votes in a final vote that apparently also included discussion of other books by not-shortlisted authors such as Vassilis Alexakis and Philippe Djian; see, for example, the report in Le Point.
I always complain about prizes that don't reveal what books are in the running, but this really takes it to new extremes. On the other hand, I haven't come across a better prize-winning-author-name than 'Scholastique Mukasonga' in ages .....
The Goncourt went to Le sermon sur la chute de Rome, by Jérôme Ferrari; see, for example, the Actes Sud publicity page. In some pretty good timing: MacLehose Press has just brought out his Where I Left My Soul (in the UK); see their publicity page.
More interesting was the way the Renaudot played out -- showing there are still ways to make these literary prizes more ...
Notre-Dame du Nil by Scholastique Mukasonga took the prize -- which came as somewhat of a surprise, since it wasn't one of the books on the final shortlist for the prize. Indeed, it took six out of ten votes in a final vote that apparently also included discussion of other books by not-shortlisted authors such as Vassilis Alexakis and Philippe Djian; see, for example, the report in Le Point.
I always complain about prizes that don't reveal what books are in the running, but this really takes it to new extremes. On the other hand, I haven't come across a better prize-winning-author-name than 'Scholastique Mukasonga' in ages .....