The literary season continues in France: the Medici Prize was awarded on Wednesday to Julia Deck for an autobiographical novel dedicated to her mother, ‘Ann d’Anglais’, published by Editions du Seuil. She won with 5 votes to 4 against Thomas Clerc, in the third round.
‘I am very moved to have this prize,’ declared the winner at the La Méditerranée restaurant in Paris.
The Swiss writer and visual artist Gabriella Zalapi, trained at the Haute école d’art et de design in Geneva, was selected in this category for her novel in French ‘Ilaria or the conquest of disobedience’. She recounts the kidnapping of an eight-year-old girl by her father and their two-year run through Italy in the 1980s.
The Medici Prize for foreign novel went to Guatemalan Eduardo Halfon, for ‘Tarantule’ (Quai Voltaire editions). He received four votes against two for the Austrian Josef Winkler in the eighth round. “I am happy, shocked to arrive at this very official ceremony,” commented the laureate.
The German based in Switzerland Katja Schönherr was also selected in this category with ‘The Ruck Family’. The author, born in Dresden in 1982, mixes social satire and generational clashes when a father, mother and teenage daughter find themselves living together.
The Medici Prize for the essay was awarded to the German Reiner Stach for the third volume of his biography of Franz Kafka, ‘The Years of Youth’. It took only one round, where he received six votes.
/ATS
