Endowed with 5,000 euros, the Nohée Book Prize rewards each year a novel or story in French on the theme of family and transmission. At the end of the jury’s deliberation broadcast this October 15, 2024, on Nohée’s YouTube channel, its president, the actress Brigitte Fossey, surrounded by Éric Bouhier; Élodie Fondacci; Philippe Grimbert and Pascale Senk revealed the result of this 5th edition.
Unanimously, the jury expressed its preference for My uncle from Australia (Grasset, January 2024) by François Garde, over the two other titles in competition: The other part by Morgane Az (Éditions Plon, August 2023) and Ce que je know about you by Éric Chacour (Éditions Philippe Rey, August 2023).
By resurrecting a character from his family who had been murdered in the collective memory, François Garde was able to mourn the loss of his father. (…) From this fabulous return in the soul of this uncle hidden and destroyed by an entire family, he emerges transformed while his vision of the world becomes different. This novel is of great beauty.
Brigitte Fossey, actress
François Garde’s reaction to the announcement of the result
The jury’s choice touches me a lot because this novel represents seven years of writing and questioning, on the fact of knowing how I was going to come to the end of this story, while wondering if it would interest readers other than my brothers and sisters. Proof is given to me that a family secret can be of interest beyond the family circle.
François Garde, author of the book “My Oncle from Australia” and Winner of the 2024 Nohée Prize
The summary of the book
“What would a family be without family secrets? »: this is the question that haunts this book. In the Garde family, the story of Uncle Marcel, exiled at the age of twenty by his father to Australia in 1900, is whispered in a very low voice. Eager to do justice to this stranger, the author begins by inventing the novel of adventures of the outcast: his arrival in Sydney, his resolution to become someone else in this Promised Land.
But by investigating this erased life, the author realizes that the family story is not reliable. If Marcel did not disappear in Australia, we must go back from branch to branch in a family tree full of silences and deaths to find traces of this young man with a tragic destiny.
How do we get as close as possible to the truth of a being? By the gaps in transmitted memory, by archives, by fiction? Legends, omissions or concealments more than a century old are passed down from generation to generation, so that ghosts sometimes determine the fate of their descendants…
About the author
Child of a Russian professor at the University of Aix and a stay-at-home mother, Savoyard by adoption, François Garde launched into writing after having enjoyed a long career within the French administration. , after studying at Sciences Po then at ENA. These activities which lead him to travel will nourish his texts with a privileged place for the imagination. He has published several novels and essays, some of which have won awards.
A prize that honors family and transmission
Singular in its theme around strong values, family and transmission, the Nohée Book Prize is also unique in involving the participants of the Nohée residences Reading Club for the selection of the three finalists, before the final vote for the winner by a jury of personalities.
Its other specificity is the jury’s deliberation, which is the subject of a recording broadcast in the residences via Nohée’s YouTube channel, including the participation of three residents on the books in competition.
Thus Suzanne Davias (Nohée Sèvres residence); Pierre Hoffmann (Nohée Avignon residence) and Colette Jeanniot (Nohée Paris Auteuil residence) were the three witnesses for this edition. The ceremony is orchestrated on the same day and at the same time, in the 35 Nohée residences. A festive snack invites all residents as well as their loved ones and families to discover the jury’s deliberations.
In each of the Nohée residences, we are committed to instilling a family spirit. The Book Prize highlights this commitment. Each in their own way, the three finalist books of this 5th edition offered a source of emotions, family secrets, links and transmission between generations. I think I can say that, for me, as for the residents of the Nohée residences, they reveal much more than life stories.
Marie Jason, deputy operating director of Nohée
Winners of previous editions
2020: Anne Icart, Letters from Washington Square (Robert Laffont, January 2020)
2021: Olivier Mak-Bouchard, The Tale of the Mistral (Le Tripode, August 2020)
2022: Mathias Malzieu, The Porcelain Warrior (Albin Michel, January 2022)
2023: Marie Charrel, The Night Eaters (L’Observatoire, January
This article was published by the Editorial Team on
October 15, 2024
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