(Rennes) A reflection on the family and immigration: the Franco-Lebanese journalist Sabyl Ghoussoub won the Goncourt high school students 2022 on Thursday for his novel Beirut-sur-Seine.
“The bad high school student that I was should thank the wonderful high school students that you are. This prize is a huge honour,” reacted Sabyl Ghoussoub to the phone reached by the young jury after the announcement of the prize.
“This book is a tribute to my parents, to the exiles of the war, I think a lot of the living. It’s a beautiful personal story that goes far beyond the story of my parents and I can’t thank you enough for this choice,” he added.
In Beirut-sur-Seine (Editions Stock), his second novel, the 34-year-old Franco-Lebanese literary columnist and journalist, offers a reflection on the family and immigration, by questioning his parents who came to settle in Paris in 1975 when the war was going on. ravage their country.
“It’s the greatest prize. It is an encouragement. This can allow me to give myself more time for writing, ”explained Sabyl Ghoussoub in an interview with AFP.
“For Lebanon I am very happy, I don’t know if this prize can do good for a few seconds to someone there, in any case, if so I am delighted” , added the journalist, columnist at The Orient-The Day.
After two rounds of voting, the prestigious prize was crowned by 7 votes Sabyl Ghoussoub, against 5 for the philosopher Nathan Devers and his book The artificial links (Albin Michel editions).
The other two finalists were Pascale Robert-Diard, legal columnist at the newspaper The world and author of The little liar (L’Iconoclaste editions), and the Swiss journalist Sarah Jollien-Fardel for His favorite (Sabine Wespieser editions).
Brigitte Giraud’s novel live fast (Flammarion editions), Goncourt 2022, had not been selected.
This 35e Goncourt high school students, awarded in Rennes by a jury of 12 high school students, was to be given to the author in Paris in the evening at the Ministry of National Education.
“Flavours of the Orient”
“We chose this book because it talks about the identity crisis, the question of immigration, this theme, few books talk about it”, explained to the journalists the president of the jury Blandine Lebrequier in high school Thomas Elye in Cherbourg-en-Cotentin.
“In fact this book, and even the author, it is solar, the narration is just incredible, we have the impression that we are in the family of the narrator”, she underlined.
This novel also appealed to Paul Hugo in 2nd grade at Gustave Eiffel high school in Bordeaux: this book “allows you to touch these flavors of the Orient, the atmospheres of Sabyl Ghoussoub’s family, there are touches of humor”, noted the pupil.
This literary prize is “really the prize for high school students”, assured Lena Depinoy, student of 1D general at the De Gaulle high school in Dijon. “No adult influenced us or told us what to do. We don’t usually feel listened to too much, there we were literally put on a platform ”.
Goncourt’s little brother, the Goncourt for high school students, created in Rennes in 1988 and organized by Fnac and the Ministry of National Education, takes place each year from September to November and allows some 2,000 high school students from the second to the BTS, to discover contemporary literature and to arouse a taste for reading.
Their choice was made from the 15 works selected for the prestigious Goncourt Prize.
Fifty-five high schools were mobilized in the region where several meetings between students and authors were organized. The prize also associated high schools abroad (United States, Canada, Lebanon).
Very influential in terms of sales, the Goncourt des lycéens was awarded last year to Clara Dupont-Monod for Adapt (Editions Stock), a novel about disability.