(Paris) The Goncourt Prize returns Wednesday to its tradition of feasts, with lunch at the Drouant restaurant and literary consecration for a novelist among four finalists, including Christine Angot and the newcomer Mohamed Mbougar Sarr.
Forget the 2020 edition, postponed to December due to the closure of bookstores, and completed by a videoconference: the Académie Goncourt returns to its classic format, in this establishment in the Opéra district in Paris.
After having sacred The anomaly in 2020, it could be the year of the first Senegalese winner, with Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, or Haitian, with Louis-Philippe Dalembert.
The first, author of The most secret memory of men (Éditions Philippe Rey), is given favorite by a majority of literary journalists interviewed by the review Weekly Books. His age, 31, would also make him the earliest winner since Goncourt 1976.
The second, who signs Milwaukee Blues (Sabine Wespieser Publishing), inspired by the murder of George Floyd in the United States, is considered an outsider.
Rather than them, the jury might be tempted to crown Christine Angot with The trip to the east (Flammarion) or Sorj Chalandon with Bastard child (Grasset), two very remarkable novels considered among the best of their author.
It should be more difficult for Christine Angot, who has just won the Medici Prize.
Asked by AFP on Saturday, the president of the Académie Goncourt Didier Decoin said he was not very enthusiastic about the idea of imitating the Medici. “We must not forget our friends and allies, the booksellers. If we give two prizes to a single book, that only makes one book in the window, ”he stressed.
But nothing is lost: “we have said that we do not take into account other prices” and the president himself “is still hesitating a few days before the ballot”.
Small versus large publisher
This Goncourt is also a clash between two powerful publishers, accustomed to rewards, Grasset (Hachette group) and Flammarion (Madrigall group), and two small independents, new to this field.
Louis-Philippe Dalembert and Mohamed Mbougar Sarr have in common that they are defended by a house that bears the name of the person who founded it and still manages it.
For this type of house, to compete with the big names in the sector, “it is extremely important both symbolically and economically”, said editor Sabine Wespieser on France 24 Friday. “I have a printer who is ready to press the button at 12:45 pm on Wednesday, November 3, to roll 200,000 copies,” she added.
As for Philippe Rey, he has been discreet about his way of approaching D-Day, but he has worked intensely in recent months to make known to the general public a writer dubbed by the critics.
The Goncourt Prize, awarded by a jury of seven men and three women, earns a check for 10 euros ($ 14.33), but it guarantees sales in the hundreds of thousands of copies.
The coronation in 2020 of The anomaly, a whimsical novel by Hervé Le Tellier, had generated in bookstores a craze never seen since The lover by Marguerite Duras in 1984.
This year, the themes are more serious: incest with Christine Angot, the mythomania of a father engaged with the Nazis with Sorj Chalandon, police violence with Louis-Philippe Dalembert, and the difficulty of African literature to be recognized. at Mohamed Mbougar Sarr.
“It is true that these are serious subjects. But if you take, for example, Sorj Chalandon’s book, where the subject is dramatic (the Klaus Barbie trial, the Shoah…), it is treated with this distancing that he puts into all his books. Bastards are always grotesque. Mohamed Mbougar Sarr’s book, even if it is less funny, when you read it carefully, there are also bursts of humor, ”noted Didier Decoin.
The Renaudot prize is also awarded to Drouant on Wednesday.