(Krakow) The jury of the most prestigious French literary prize, the Goncourt, propelled to the final on Wednesday four writers who were regularly cited among the favorites, with ambitious novels each in their own way.
The lucky ones, announced the Académie Goncourt from Krakow in Poland, are called Jean-Baptiste Andrea, Gaspard Kœnig, Éric Reinhardt and Neige Sinno.
The Goncourt Prize is awarded on November 7 at the Drouant restaurant, in the Opéra district of Paris, as has been the tradition for over a century.
It is difficult at this stage to predict who is in the lead, and who has his supporters already ready to defend him fiercely during the final deliberation.
All these authors benefited from enthusiastic reviews, who praised the modernity of their subjects and their style.
With Watch over her (published by L’Iconolaste), Jean-Baptiste Andrea, 52, tells a love story in fascist Italy, between a patrician and a plebeian, both of whom love art.
With more than 500 pages, this writer from the cinema is the representative, in this finale, of ample fiction and the evocative force of the novel.
Inspired by real events
Humus (The Observatory) by Gaspard Kœnig, 40, imagines agronomy students tormented by the dark destiny of our planet.
Known as a philosopher and liberal essayist, he has brilliantly succeeded, in general opinion, in his transition to literature, with this fiction which brings together many crucial questions for our common future, around a subject which seems eccentric at first: the earthworms.
Sarah, Susanne and the writer (Gallimard) by Éric Reinhardt tells the story of the fall of a woman who leaves a husband who is too absent.
This experienced 58-year-old novelist has had a string of successes, as proven by the cinema adaptation of Love and forests, one of the events of the last Cannes Film Festival. It is missing a major autumn literary prize, to which this fiction inspired by real events, in its original form, would lend itself well: a dialogue between a novelist, a bruised reader, and his fictional double.
Finally, sad tiger (POL) by Neige Sinno is a reflection on the repeated rapes imposed on the author by her stepfather in her childhood, the consequences on her life and the questions raised by these crimes for which the rapist was convicted.
Very little known until now, living in Mexico, this 46-year-old author could be crowned after having already won two literary prizes awarded by the media, the daily The world and the magazine The Unrockuptibles.
Pay attention to other prices
This is the second consecutive year, after Beirut, that the Académie Goncourt has chosen a foreign city to announce its finalists. The choice of Krakow aroused less controversy than that of 2022, in a Lebanon whose political life is crossed by tensions in the Middle East.
To guess who will win the Goncourt, pay attention to the other prizes. Delivered before, they can change the situation.
The December Prize, on October 31, chose Neige Sinno among its four finalists. As for Femina, on November 6, it has five, including Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Neige Sinno.
However, the president of the Goncourt jury, Didier Decoin, had clearly stated in the home stretch of the 2021 edition that he preferred that each prize have its winner.
He then defended “our friends and allies who are the booksellers”, because, he added, “if we give two prices to a single book, that only makes one book in the window”.