The jury of more than 800 CEGEP students decided: it is the writer Emmanuelle Pierrot and her novel The version that interests no one who received the laurels of the 21e edition of the Literary Prize for college students, one of the most coveted trophies in the world of Quebec letters.
The writer won the prize on Friday at the Quebec International Book Fair, with her very first work. The version that interests no one, published by Le Quartanier, anchors its punk story in the cold of the Yukon. The author dipped her pen in her own experience to create this novel irrigated by subculture and which follows the paths on the fringes of the markers set up by “good society”.
Emmanuelle Pierrot stands out among a particularly abundant literary vintage this year.
Among the finalists was The Joke of the Centuryby Jean-Christophe Réhel, himself recipient of the Literary Prize for middle school students in 2019 with What we breathe on Tatouine.
Eric Chacour was also in the running with his much-noticed What I know about youcrowned with the Fémina prize for high school students in France.
Louis-Daniel Godin also received a number of accolades for The account is gooda dive into the quest for identity of a boy adopted at the age of five days and “forever indebted to his adoptive parents”, as colleague Anne-Frédérique Dolbec-Hébert nicely wrote about the novel.
Finally, Mikella Nicol unmasked the culture of physical performance and its false promise of self-esteem in Formatting, a novel she described as “her revenge on beauty.” »
All the candidates, with the exception of Jean-Christophe Réhel, signed their first novel.
The Literary Prize for Middle School Students awards its prize at the end of a competition in which more than 800 young people from 64 CEGEPs participate this year. The recipient will leave with honors – and the Bourgie-Lemieux scholarship of $5,000.