The two biggest annual French literary prizes were announced yesterday, with Boussole (by Mathias Enard) winning the prix Goncourt, and D'après une histoire vraie (by Delphine de Vigan -- in her fifth try at the prize) winning the prix Renaudot.
The Goncourt is sort of France's 'book of the year'-award, of similar above-all-the-others-standing as the Man Booker Prize -- but comes with a small asterisk, as authors can only win the prize once (theoretically -- Romain Gary proved otherwise, but it's unlikely to happen again), so many of the best books of the year aren't even considered for the prize (and so, for example, Michel Houellebecq's Submission wasn't even eligible for consideration for this year's prize, since he's already won it).
See also the Actes Sud publicity page for Boussole; Open Letter (US) and Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK) have brought out previous titles of his; several of Vigan's titles are also available in English.
The Goncourt is sort of France's 'book of the year'-award, of similar above-all-the-others-standing as the Man Booker Prize -- but comes with a small asterisk, as authors can only win the prize once (theoretically -- Romain Gary proved otherwise, but it's unlikely to happen again), so many of the best books of the year aren't even considered for the prize (and so, for example, Michel Houellebecq's Submission wasn't even eligible for consideration for this year's prize, since he's already won it).
See also the Actes Sud publicity page for Boussole; Open Letter (US) and Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK) have brought out previous titles of his; several of Vigan's titles are also available in English.