The ladies of the 2024 Femina Prize met on Tuesday, November 5 at 1 p.m., at the Carnavalet Museum and awarded the Franco-Venezuelan author, already winner of the grand prize for the novel of the French Academy.
And two. After obtaining the Grand Prix du roman from the French Academy, Miguel Bonnefoy has just won the Femina Prize this Tuesday, November 5 with his novel The Jaguar’s Dream (Shore), a baroque and breathtaking family saga. He succeeds Neige Sinno, with sad tiger (P.O.L.).
An astonishing double. Firstly, because we have not seen any others over the last ten years. If there was a double, it was for example with the Goncourt of high school students: Clara Dupont-Monod and Neige Sinno, won both, respectively in 2021 and 2023. Then, because by crowning an already award-winning novel, the booksellers will not sell two books but only one. The banner will include the names of two prizes. Which, in a period of book crisis, is always regrettable. Finally, because the last Femina list was beautiful and eclectic. They included: Pierre Adrian, for Hotel Roma (Gallimard), Emma Becker, pour The Evil Joli (Albin Michel), Christophe Bigot for Another is waiting for me elsewhere (La Martinière), Antoine Choplin for The Boat of Masao (Buchet Chastel) and Benjamin de La Forcade, Berlin for them (Gallimard).
The Foreign Femina Prize was awarded to the Chilean Alia Trabucco Zeran for Own(Robert Laffont), a wonderful psychological novel featuring Estela, a domestic worker in Santiago. Every day, Estela puts on her uniform, mops the floor, prepares potatoes, waters the garden and takes care of little Julia. Estela leads a life made up of repetitions in a bourgeois setting, or what looks more like a distressing closed door over the pages, until the day Julia dies. Did she kill her? In its September 6 issue, The literary Figaro wrote: « Own is a true tragedy about time, about relationships of domination and money, appearances and conventions. Alia Trabucco Zeran holds up a mirror to us and it is disturbing. »
The Femina essay prize was awarded to Standing up to Paul Audi (Stock). Finally, this year, the ladies of Femina presented a special prize for the entire body of work of Colm Tóibín.
Miguel Bonnefoy is still present on the Medici list. Will he score a hat-trick? Response on November 6.
