From Friday 13 to Sunday 15 September, the Livre sur la place took place in Nancy, presented as the first book festival of the literary rentrée. Chaired by Edgar Morin, the 46e edition was particularly moving for the world of books, with a vibrant tribute paid to Bernard Pivot, member of the Goncourt Academy who died on May 6, 2024.
Read and reread
At the inauguration of the exhibition, Edgar Morin, welcomed by the mayor of Nancy, Mathieu Klein, was given a standing ovation. The centenarian philosopher then confided his attachment to reading and literature: “The novel continues to give me this connection with the world. Not only do I read but I reread, and the pleasure of rereading is to rediscover other aspects of books. I reread 93 by Victor Hugo. Hugo, a masterpiece. I reread some of Balzac’s short stories. Today I reread books on the problem of faith, religion, religious feeling and unbelief.”
Later on Saturday, the discussions continued with an interview hosted by Laure Adler. “To exceed 100 years is to venture into unknown lands, grants Edgar Morin, 103. And I would say that now, I don’t keep count anymore. It just happened, but I know that one day, bang! I’m going to fall…” He again insisted on the importance of the book, before a reading given by Philippe Torreton. “Even today, books teach me a lot.confided Edgar Morin. Even just the fact that we hold it in our hand, that we leaf through it, that we annotate it – I often take sentences that I quote – the book has its strong, inimitable specificity. Edgar Morin recently published The Method of the Method, lost manuscript (Actes Sud, 416 p., €24.50) and an autobiographically inspired novel written in 1946, The year has lost its spring (Denoël, 384 p., €22).
In the presence of his daughter, Cécile, it was also a vibrant tribute that was paid to Bernard Pivot, who died on May 6, 2024. Philippe Claudel, new president of the Académie (des) Goncourt, spoke of the decisive role that Bernard Pivot was able to play for literature, with the show “Apostrophes” but not only. And it was also with delicacy and affection that he spoke of the man, of his involvement in the Academy, which Bernard Pivot presided over from 2014 to 2020.
The Book on the Square is traditionally an opportunity to honor several prizes. Thus, the members of the Académie Goncourt awarded the Goncourt for biography Edmonde Charles-Roux to Geneviève Haroche-Bouzinac for her monumental biography on Madame de Sevigne (Flammarion, 608 p., €26). Which gave rise in the salons of the town hall to a passionate exchange between the prizewinner and Françoise Chandernagor, regarding the unfortunate disappearance of a large part of Madame de Sévigné’s correspondence.
The price waltz
The Nancy-Le Point booksellers’ prize was awarded to Abel Quentin for his dystopian book Hut (L’Observatoire, 477 p., €22). The jury of the Ginkgo audiobook prize awarded Neige Sinno for sad tiger (POL, 288 p., €20), CD published by Gallimard and read by the author. Sophie Carquain is the winner of the 2024 Book and Human Rights Prize, chaired by Annette Wieviorka for A butterfly on the asphalt (L’Observatoire, 256 p., €21). As for the Envoyé par la poste prize, for its tenth edition, it goes to a young author, Anatole Edouard Nicolo, for In the shadow of things (Calmann-Lévy, 272 p., €18). Finally, the Feuille d’Or prize from the France Bleu-France 3-L’Est républicain media goes to the novel about the life of the inventor of the Coué method, The Better Life by Étienne Kern (Gallimard, 192 p., €19.50).
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