Catherine Lovey is the winner of the 2024 Michel-Dentan Prize. The Valais writer is distinguished for her novel “History of the man who did not want to die” published by Editions Zoé.
The Michel-Dentan Prize jury praised the thematic unity and characteristic tone that Catherine Lovey was able to maintain through her work, while treating difficult themes such as death or disappearance with humor and intelligence, he said. indicated Monday in a press release.
In “The Story of the Man Who Didn’t Want to Die”, her latest novel published this year, Catherine Lovey explores the relationship which strengthens in an unexpected way between two beings who everything seems to oppose: the narrator and her next door neighbor, an enigmatic Hungarian businessman who falls seriously ill at the start of a pandemic. Through this text, the novelist born in 1967 “takes a lively and touching look at the big questions of existence, as well as our time and its shortcomings”, notes the jury.
>> To read: Author Catherine Lovey neighbors the man who didn’t want to die
A prize of 8,000 francs
The other writers in the running this year were Elisa Shua Dusapin, Louise Bonsack, Jérémie Gindre and Pierrine Poget. The prize will be presented to Catherine Lovey on June 11, 2024 in Lausanne.
Supported by the Coromandel and Jan Michalski foundations, the Michel-Dentan Prize is endowed with 8,000 francs. Created in 1984, each year it recognizes the work of a Swiss or French-speaking author living in Switzerland. Last year, the distinction was awarded to Franco-Swiss author Corinne Desarzens for her book “A Christmas with Winston”.
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