find the award-winning novels this fall

Many novels published, but few chosen ones. As the awards season comes to an end, here is the list of award-winning novels this year.

The literary prize season ended Thursday, November 23 with the prestigious and highly influential Goncourt prize for high school students, awarded Thursday, November 23 in Rennes to Neige Sinno for sad tiger. Among the 466 novels published in the fall literary season, only a handful of chosen ones won a prize, but some, like those by Neige Sinno and Jean-Baptiste Andrea, or Kevin Lambert, won several.

“Sad Tiger” by Neige Sinno (POL)

In sad tiger, published on August 17 by POL editions, Neige Sinno looks back on the rapes she suffered at the hands of her stepfather when she was a child. This radical literary enterprise to tell the impossible story of incest earned Neige Sinno four prizes: in September the Le Monde literary prize, in October the Les Inrockuptibles novel prize, then the Femina Prize on November 6 and finally the Goncourt Prize for high school students on November 23. High school students rewarded this book for “its literary qualities and its daring form to address a sensitive subject”.

“Watch over her” by Jean-Baptiste Andrea (The Iconoclast)

This broad and classic romance novel, which takes place under fascist Italy, was one of the favorites of the 2023 juries. It ultimately won two prizes, including the coveted Goncourt. “A great price that people will be proud to buy and put under the Christmas tree”Pascal Bruckner, member of the Académie Goncourt, told Franceinfo Culture on November 7 during the announcement of the most prestigious French literary prize. Watch over her had already received the Fnac novel prize on October 26.

“Let our joy remain” by Kevin Lambert (Le Nouvel Attila)

December Price on October 31 And Prix ​​Médicis on November 9: two prizes also for this novel by the young Quebec writer Kévin Lambert which plunges in the spheres of the very large Montreal bourgeoisie through the story of a fall, that of a great star architect whose work is called into question by the inhabitants of Quebec. Very daring in its form, the book was also the subject of controversy in September, when the author revealed that he had called on the intervention of a “sensitivity reader” to verify to what extent a character of Haitian origin was credible.

“Humus” by Gaspard Koenig (L’Observatoire)

The Interallié prize was awarded on Wednesday November 22 to Gaspard Koenig for Humus, fiction about two young agronomic engineers critical of intensive agriculture. This novel, published in August by Éditions de L’Observatoire, also won the Jean Giono prize. And he was among the finalists for the Goncourt and Renaudot prizes. “The earthworms are us!”, exclaims one of the characters in the story. Beyond this allegory of humans crushed by the system, Humus questions the return to nature – our irremediable fate. He also questions ambition, the price to pay to see his fights through to the end.

“The Insolents” by Ann Scott (Calmann-Lévy)

The Insolent recounts the arrival “in the middle of nowhere” by Alex, a film music composer who decides to leave the capital to reinvent herself, wishing to live “elsewhere and alone”. The character is a fictional double of the author, who left Paris for Brittany, where she now lives. With this novel, Ann Scott, who before writing was a model and drummer in a punk band, won the 2023 Renaudot prize.

“A way of loving” by Dominique Barbéris (Gallimard)

This latest novel by Dominique Barbéris was awarded the Grand Prix de l’Académie française on October 26, 2023. “It won’t remove doubt about the quality of what I write. But I have 30 years of writing behind me, and God knows it’s a wonderful recognition”, she declared upon receiving this award. Words that accurately reflect this melancholy and elegant novel. A way of loving transports the reader from Nantes to Douala in Cameroon, where the heroine, Madeleine, embarks with Guy, employee of the Société des bois du Cameroun, her newly met husband. It was during the times of the colonies, boredom and adultery loomed over Madeleine.

“Western” by Maria Pourchet (Stock)

With Western, Maria Pourchet won the Flore prize on November 8. Two years after the powerful Fire (2021), the Vosges writer delivers a vitriolic account of contemporary romantic relationships and questions the reader: how to love after #MeToo? What is no longer bearable today?

“The Great Help” by Thomas B. Reverdy (Flammarion)

For this novel, Thomas B. Reverdy received the Landerneau Readers’ Prize. The president of the jury, Cécile Coulon, herself a novelist, welcomed “the audacity to mix genres, poetry and the social novel, in a relentless rhythm, always right, frantic”. A teacher in Seine-Saint-Denis, the author recounts in this lively and uncompromising novel a day in a high school in Bobigny.