The Goncourt Prize, the most prestigious French literary prize, is due to be awarded on Monday November 4. A look back at five anecdotes about this 2024 edition.
► Four finalists
The Académie Goncourt announced on Tuesday October 22 the four finalists for the prize for 2024: Gaël Faye for Jacaranda (Grasset), Kamel Daoud for Houris (Gallimard), Sandrine Collette for Madelaine before dawn (JC Lattès) and Hélène Gaudy for Archipelagos (Ed. de l’Olivier). The winner will be announced this November 4.
Houris of the Franco-Algerian Kamel Daoud and Jacaranda by the Franco-Rwandan Gaël Faye were among the favorites.
► A jury made up of ten “cutlery”
To decide on the Goncourt Prize, the members of the jury meet for lunch at the Drouant restaurant in Paris. Each of the ten members has its own “place setting”, an idea launched in 1961 to mirror the chairs of the French Academy.
This year, the Goncourt Academy is chaired by Philippe Claudel, who took over from Didier Decoin in May 2024. The jury is also made up of Françoise Chandernagor (vice-president), Camille Laurens (general secretary), Pascal Bruckner, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Pierre Assouline, Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, as well as Christine Angot. Paule Constant, who has reached the age limit, has been named an honorary member.
If they write a literary column in a media outlet, the members of the jury must refrain from commenting on the selected works as long as they remain in the running for the prize. An important obligation to avoid influencing the judgment of other critics or disrupting predictions.
► Two previous selections before the final
The Goncourt Academy had, at the beginning of September, drawn up a list of sixteen novels, then reduced the choice to eight titles at the beginning of October, before retaining only these four finalists.
Authors who were nevertheless spotted during the literary season, like Philippe Jaenada for Casualness is a very beautiful thing (Mialet-Barrault) or Maylis de Kerangal for Surf day (Vertical) were not retained.
► A price which follows a very tight 2023 edition
In 2023, Watch over her by Jean-Baptiste Andrea won the Goncourt, after a very close vote. As in 2022, fourteen rounds were necessary to decide between him and the other finalists, Éric Reinhardt (Sarah, Susanne and the writer, Gallimard), the philosopher Gaspard Koenig (Humus, I read) and Neige Sinno (Sad Tiger, P.O.L).
In these cases of neck and neck, the statutes of the Académie Goncourt are clear: in the final round of voting, the vote of the president becomes preponderant and makes the difference.
► A first delivery in 1903
This literary prize, the oldest and most coveted, was imagined by two brothers, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. The latter wanted to create a literary academy capable of competing with the French Academy.
After their death, they decide that their property will be sold and the entirety of their capital placed for the benefit of the Academy which will reward “the best work of imagination in prose published in the year” and written by a French-speaking author.
The Goncourt Prize was awarded for the first time in 1903 to John-Antoine Nau for Enemy force (Ed. La Plume).
