(Paris) The magazine Les Inrockuptibles on Tuesday awarded her prize for the French novel to Christine Angot for The trip to the east (Flammarion), book competing for the Goncourt Prize.
“When we created our prize in 2020, our wish was to reward and highlight an author whose book had not received a suitable reception or a literary prize when he deserved it”, wrote the editorial staff.
“We were thinking in particular of a writer like Christine Angot, who after having published for thirty years texts which have reshaped the face of contemporary French literature, had not always received great prizes,” she added, welcoming “An essential text by its purpose […] and by its form ”.
The trip to the east tells with great precision what is the main motive of the work of the novelist, the incest of which she was the victim. It has been hailed by critics and literary juries as one of the peaks of the work of a novelist who has sparked much controversy for more than twenty years.
It is part, with Bastard child by Sorj Chalandon, Milwaukee Blues by Louis-Philippe Dalembert and The most secret memory of men by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, of the four novels in the last selection of the Goncourt Prize, awarded on Wednesday.
The price of the foreign novel of Inrocks was awarded to the Vietnamese-American Ocean Vuong for A brief moment of splendor (Gallimard). It is a fictionalized letter from this author to his Vietnamese mother, in which he expresses his gratitude for her.
The prize for the first novel went to Dimitri Rouchon-Borie, for The demon of the hill of wolves (Le Tripode), the story of the nightmarish life of an imprisoned man.
Finally, the prize for the essay was given to Mona Chollet for Reinventing love: how patriarchy sabotages heterosexual relationships (Zones / La Découverte) and the comic book award to Antoine Maillard for The notch (Cornelius), the story of serial murder that affects adolescents.