The CEGEP students chose to award the College Students Literary Prize on Friday to the novel by Emmanuelle Pierrot The version that interests no one.
Published by Quartanier last fall, this first novel delves into a community of misfits in Dawson City and recounts the descent into hell of a young punk who will be ostracized by her best friends.
The jury emphasized having been seduced by “the powerful emotions aroused in the readership, in accordance with the time and place that [l’autrice] described with remarkable acuity”, as well as by “the narrative and stylistic virtuosity which oscillates between the said and the unsaid, between the shocking and the sublime”. He also chose this book “for the denunciation of the hypocrisy of a supposedly free and egalitarian society, but which hides a very rooted misogyny”.
The other finalists of this 21e edition were What I know about youby Éric Chacour (Viola), The joke of the centuryby Jean-Christophe Réhel (Del Busso), The account is goodby Louis-Daniel Godin (La Peuplade), and Formattingby Mikella Nicol (The August Horse), which were read by nearly 1,000 CEGEP students from the province.
The jury, made up of 62 students elected by their peers to represent their CEGEP, met in Quebec City on Friday morning for the final deliberation. The announcement was made at the Quebec International Book Fair. The prize is accompanied by the Bourgie-Lemieux scholarship, which amounts to $5,000.
Last year, it was Francis Ouellette’s first novel, Fancy Molasseswho won the prize.