The author Éric Chacour, whose novel What I know about you continues to garner honors and praise, won the prestigious Prix des cinq continents de la Francophonie on Tuesday.
The moving book by the author born in Montreal to Egyptian parents was already enjoying a successful career in France, where he received the Femina des Lycéens prize. The Five Continents Prize should give it even more international recognition, since it puts books from across the French-speaking world in the running.
This year, 226 works were submitted for this prize created by the International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF) in 2001. Éric Chacour’s book, published by Alto in Quebec, was one of the ten finalists which also included Quebecer Dominique Scali with his novel Sailors don’t know how to swim.
The winning book was chosen by a jury chaired by the Franco-Tunisian writer and journalist Faouzia Zouari. “The plot of this first novel takes current paths in the world explored by our prize. The broken tradition, an unacceptable love, the exile, the tension of return, the impossible resolution between lives torn apart in time, space, hopes. In a literary period of cries, of outbursts, of languages crazy by the revelation of misfortunes, an unpredictable writer presents himself here, who polishes each sentence so that it knows how to say what he observes down to the smallest of gestures, of looks, movements that carry life choices. A classicism that describes the finesse of feelings and the present time with delicacy. A story of love, memory and devastation”, among other things underlined the jury in a press release about What I know about you.
Other Quebecers have already won this prize, including Jocelyne Saucier for It was raining birds in 2011, which made him known to readers throughout the French-speaking world.