Éric Chacour wins the France-Québec Literary Prize

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After the Femina Prize for high school students and the French Booksellers Prize, Quebec writer Éric Chacour won the France-Quebec Literary Prize on Friday for his first novel, What I know about you. The announcement was made at the Montreal Book Fair, which continues until Sunday.

As the author is currently in Guadeloupe for the Festival Scripts of the Americas, it was the representatives of his French-speaking publishers – Éditions Alto in Quebec and Éditions Philippe Rey in France – who accepted the prize on his behalf.

Created in 1998, the France-Québec Literary Prize is dedicated to the promotion and dissemination in France of the best Quebec literature and is awarded each year to an author from Quebec. The prize is accompanied by a grant of 5,000 euros (7,400 Canadian dollars) and a tour of France, which promotes meetings between the winners and the readership.

Last year, it was the writer and professor Alain Beaulieu who won the prize with his novel The shelter.

Remember that Éric Chacour’s first novel, which he began writing while working in the financial sector, also received nominations for the Femina Prize, the Renaudot Prize and the Giller Prize.

What I know about you relates the journey of Tarek, a young doctor in Cairo in the 1980s who follows a destiny mapped out for him, until an encounter that will shake his marriage, his career and his certainties.