If Sandrine Collette and Hélène Gaudy appeared as outsiders and Gaël Faye and Kamel Daoud as favorites, it was the latter who was awarded, Monday November 4, 2024, the most prestigious French-speaking literary prize.
Elected in the first round with six votes (compared to two for Hélène Gaudy, one for Sandrine Collette and one for Gaël Faye), Kamel Daoud succeeds Jean-Baptiste Andrea, Goncourt 2023 for his novel Watch over her.
Gaël Faye was also rewarded, that same day, with the Renaudot prize for his second novel Jacarandaon the reconstruction of Rwanda after the 1994 genocide.
A more than favorite novel
The Goncourt Academy, which – from the Parisian restaurant Drouant, as tradition dictates – officially crowned the Franco-Algerian writer, does not really create a surprise since the literary Landerneau, if we are to believe Le Figaro, predicted for several days the coronation ofHouris (Gallimard editions).
Marceline Bodier, blogger and contributor to the 20 Minutes Books group, had also said of this novel evoking the recent “wounds” of Algeria (during the civil war which tore it apart, from 1992 to 2002) that it repaired “the slap in the face of the amnesty laws which allowed the executioners to live with impunity among their 200,000 victims”.
One more reward…
The book, which has already received the Landerneau Readers' Prize 2024 and the Transfuge Prize for best French novel, was also in the selections for the Interallié Prize and the Grand Prix du roman of the Académie française. And he is also among the finalists for the Renaudot prize.
Our “Prix Goncourt” file
In addition to real national fame and, to a lesser extent, abroad, obtaining a Goncourt prize allows you to win a check for ten euros (symbolic), but promises its winner sales in hundreds of thousands of copies.
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