Traditions being immutable, the winners of the Goncourt and Renaudot prizes were announced after the equally traditional meal for the members of the juries at the legendary restaurant Chez Drouant.
Thus, Kamel Daoud won the Goncourt prize for Hourispublished by Gallimard. The Renaudot prize was awarded to Gaël Faye, for Jacarandapublished by Grasset. The Renaudot essay was awarded to Sébastien Lapaque for Checkmate in paradisepublished by Actes Sud.
A prize which has a particular flavor for Kamel Daoud, since his novel is not well regarded by the Algerian authorities, evoking a heavy past completely hidden there. Journalist and former editor-in-chief in Algeria, Kamel Daoud has often rebelled against the power in place. Fiction today allows him to express an uncompromising reality. The author now lives in France, in order to be free of his words and to ensure his safety. Houris carries the voice of a mutilated, pregnant woman who would like to have an abortion, seeing no future for her daughter, to whom she is speaking.
Gaël Faye, Franco-Rwandan singer-songwriter and rapper, first became known in literature with Small countrywhich was also a great success and received the Goncourt from high school students. With Jacarandahe delves into the consequences of the genocide, into this heavy legacy which weighs on more than one generation. Through his young Milan, who decides to go to Rwanda to draw on his roots, he who has never lived there, we go through the entire history of this country marked by tragedy. Born in Burundi to a genocide survivor, Gaël Faye himself fled his country for France.
Winners, therefore, who offer a voice to those we hear less. These are Books which denounce and tell the story of the world, a world certainly in difficulty, grappling with terrible realities, which it is imperative to name in order to take note of them.
Books
