Senegalese Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, 31, wins the 2021 Goncourt Prize for The Most Secret Memory of Men (Philippe Rey edition), Wednesday November 3. He obtained 6 votes in the first round, announced Philippe Claudel, secretary general of Goncourt, at the Drouant restaurant in Paris.
“I feel a lot of joy. Quite simply”, he told the press on his arrival in Drouant. “There is no age in literature. You can arrive very young, or at 67, at 30, at 70 and yet be very old”, he added.
Three other authors were finalists for the oldest French literary prize, which has been awarded since 1903 “the best work of imagination in prose, published in the year” and written by a French-speaking author. It was Christine Angot with The Journey to the East (Flammarion), Sorj Chalandon with Bastard child (Grasset) and Louis-Philippe Dalembert with Milwaukee Blues (Sabine Wespieser).
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr is the first writer from sub-Saharan Africa to be honored with the most prestigious of literary awards and the youngest winner since Patrick Grainville in 1976.
Born in 1990, son of a doctor from Diourbel, in central Senegal, he proved to be an excellent student and avid reader. When asked if he felt any pressure from his parents to be successful as the oldest of six brothers, he replies: “No, not necessarily! I just want to give the best example possible to my brothers.” He joined the elite sector of boys in his country, the military prytaneum of Saint-Louis-du-Senegal.
Many professions come to mind, doctor, footballer, soldier, journalist, lawyer, teacher … Compiègne high school near Paris. She will take him to one of the most prestigious “large schools“French, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. His research focused on the great voice of African literature and champion of “negritude”, Léopold Sedar Senghor. “I did not finish my thesis, because I started to write a lot at that time, and fiction won out”, he confides. He now lives in Beauvais, north of Paris.
He entered literature at the age of 24, with “Earth encircled”, published by a house whose catalog had formed him, Présence africaine. Follows Silence of the heart in 2017.
Philippe Rey, publisher with recognized expertise in French-speaking literature, convinced him to join him for the third and fourth, “Pure men” (2018) and “The most secret memory of men” (2021). On this book which explores the destiny of a cursed Senegalese writer inspired by Malian Yambo Ouologuem (1940-2017), Renaudot prize in 1968, Philippe Rey, known for his high standards, was particularly attentive. According to him, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, after having explored so finely all African literature, held the subject that was going to make him break through. There was only to work, to rework this text again.
“I was very lucky to have been supported: this is not the case for all African writers. Nor for all writers at all! I am well aware that being an African writer published in France can be complicated, as for all those who come from a margin. But it is changing. That African literature remains largely to be known, it is also a chance for it “, estimated the writer, interviewed in September by AFP.
Presented to the juries of the autumn prizes, the novel quickly convinced by the quality of its style and the mystery of its characters. Of a modest nature and a very soft speech, the young Senegalese was surprised by this success. When his publisher had launched the bet during the summer to run a marathon if he was in the first selection of three different prizes, he had accepted. Philippe Rey has run one since, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr not yet. But he has a good excuse: he has scoured almost every possible literary festival in France in recent months.
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