(Paris) The writer Kevin Lambert, at the center of a controversy in France over the use of a “ sensitivity reader » (reader responsible for identifying elements in a book likely to hurt minorities), is no longer in the running for the prestigious Goncourt prize.
The young Quebecer made a name for himself when the editor of May our joy remainLe Nouvel Attila, revealed that he had used a Canadian-Haitian proofreader to check whether a character of Haitian origin was credible.
The practice of “ sensitivity reader », almost non-existent in France, divides the world of letters. It was notably condemned by the winner of the 2018 Goncourt, Nicolas Mathieu.
“Making professionals in sensitivities, experts in stereotypes, specialists in what is accepted and dared at a given moment the compass of our work, that leaves us circumspect to say the least,” he commented in September on his Instagram account.
The Goncourt jury, whose members promised that this controversy would not influence them, rejected this novel, for reasons that it does not reveal. His habit is to prefer consensus to undermined debates.
The favorites for the 2023 Goncourt Prize like Éric Reinhardt or Neige Sinno remain in the race in the second selection published by the jury on Tuesday.
The Goncourt, the most prestigious French literary prize, has the lowest prize pool of all: 10 euros. But it guarantees sales amounting to hundreds of thousands of copies.
After an initial selection of 16 titles, he narrowed his choice to eight titles. The four finalists must be chosen in Warsaw on October 25, then the prize awarded on November 7 at the Drouant restaurant in Paris.
Snow Sinno (sad tiger) and Laure Murat (Proust, family novel) sign very personal essays, one after having suffered a long incest, the other after having had to break with his aristocratic environment because of his homosexuality.
Still in the autobiographical vein, but on a lighter subject, Jean-Philippe Toussaint (The chessboard) evokes his passion for chess.
The other five novels selected are fiction, such as Sarah, Susanne and the writer by Éric Reinhardt, which tells the story of the fall of a woman who leaves her husband.
The surprise of this list is Antoine Sénanque, a doctor who writes a medieval thriller, at the time of the plague, Ash Cross.