(Paris) The star novel of the literary season, Dear asshole by Virginie Despentes, is absent from the first selection of the Femina prize, which includes 16 French novels, the jury said on Thursday.
Posted yesterday at 11:34 a.m.
If Virginie Despentes was for a year, in 2015, a member of this exclusively female jury, that was not a reason to dismiss her. “The book did not come up for discussion,” a source close to the jury told AFP.
Among the choices of Femina, we find two titles which also pleased the juries of Goncourt and Renaudot: that of Grégoire Bouillier, The heart does not give ininvestigation into the voluntary agony of an old lady, and that of Yves Ravey, Taorminanoir novel set in Sicily.
A first novel is on the list, that of Polina Panassenko on her difficulties as a Russian immigrant with the French administration.
The Femina prize must be awarded on November 7 at the Carnavalet museum in Paris.
French novels in the running
- Miguel Bonnefoy, The inventor (Shores)
- Gregory Bouillier, The heart does not give in (Flammarion)
- Thierry Clermont, Long Island, baby (Stock)
- Sandrine Collette, We were wolves (JCLattès) *
- Brigitte Giraud, live fast (Flammarion) *
- Sibyl Grimbert, The last of his (Anne Carrier) *
- Claudie Hunzinger, A dog at my table (Grasset) *
- Oriane Jeancourt Galignani, When the tree falls (Grasset) *
- Marie Nimier, Little sister (Gallimard)
- Christophe Ono-dit-Biot, To find refuge (Gallimard) *
- Polina Panasenko, Hold your tongue (Olive Tree) *
- Yves Ravey, Taormina (Midnight) *
- Lucia Rico, GPS (POL) *
- Olivia Rosenthal, A monkey at my window (Vertical)
- Maud Simonnot, bird time (The Observatory)
- Anne-Sophie Subilia, the wife (Zoe) *
* [Les 10 romans marqués d’un astérisque concourront également au prix Femina des lycéens]
Foreign novels in the running
- Viola Ardone, The choice (Albin Michel, Italy)
- Russell Banks, Oh Canada (South Acts, USA)
- Gabriel Byrne, My ghosts and me (Sabine Wespieser, Ireland)
- Mia Couto, “The Mapper of Absences” (Metailié, Mozambique)
- Rachel Cusk, The addiction (Gallimard, Great Britain)
- Nathan Harris, The sweetness of water (Philippe Rey, USA)
- Angelika Klüssendorf, September 34 (Chambon, Germany)
- Andrei Kurkov, The gray bees (Liana Levi, Ukraine)
- Jarred McGinnis, The coward (Metailie, USA)
- Lutz Steiler, Stern 111 (Greenfinch, Germany)
- Alexander Starrit, We Germans (Belfond, Great Britain)
- Maria Stepanova, In memory of memory (Stock, Russia)
- Brandon Taylor, Real life (The Crossroads, United States)
- Colm Toibin, The magician (Grasset, Ireland)
- Juan Gabriel Vasquez, A retrospective (Threshold, Colombia)
- Hanya Yanagihara, Vgo to paradise (Grasset, United States)