The work dedicated to James Norman Hall entitled After the Turmoil by Gonzague Aizier published by ‘Ura Éditions is awarded the Éric Tabarly Prize. The opportunity to (re)discover the American writer and co-author with Charles Nordhoff of Rebels of the Bounty but also Tahiti between the wars.
“It’s a great joy”describes Gonzague Aizier the author of the book After the turmoil, in the footsteps of James Norman Hall beyond the rebels of the Bounty. He has just learned that his work won the Éric Tabarly Prize for best sea book 2024, and is preparing to receive the honors on June 19 in Paris. “ It’s recognition! This is important for the young author that I am, when you write you doubt your text a lot. Having feedback from a jury made up of sea lovers and writers is encouraging. »
The Éric Tabarly prize for the best sea book is awarded by the Association of Former Students of the Naval Academy (AEN); it was founded in 1981 and has since rewarded authors who promote the sea. Its jury is made up of former and young sailors, sympathizers and people in the field of literature.
About the 2024 jury and his book, Gonzague Aizier notes two points of interest: “ What I understood was that there were two things that appealed to them, the first was the story itself, that of James Norman Hall because he is relatively little known. Everyone knows the Bounty but little knows it. It’s a great trajectory. What also touched me was the style, the mode of narration with the alternations between the story of Hall’s life, that of Tahiti between the wars, that of contemporary Tahiti in which I had lived a little a little bit about me too, how I engaged with the project itself and the writing of the book, it was the mix of all that that appealed. »
Born in Iowa, James Norman Hall experienced the Great War, the difficulty of rebuilding himself, poverty and wandering then, after years of doubts and obstinacy, an immense literary success which never turned him away of a simple life in Tahiti, where he had settled. After the turmoil takes the reader into the life and work of James Norman Hall as well as into Polynesia between the wars and today.
This is not the first time that the great ocean has been honored by the Éric Tabarly prize. Former winners include Patrick Deville for Fenua at Éditions du Seuil in 2022, Emmanuel Desclèves for The people of the ocean, the art of navigation in Oceania in 2010, published by Harmattan, or even Bertrand de Laroncière for Queen Pomare: Tahiti and the West 1812-1877 at Harmattan again, rewarded in 2004. Proof, if necessary, that the area inspires the authors.
Gonzague Aizier hopes to start writing a new text. He will take his steps in the wake of another character “.
