The Femina novel prize was awarded this Tuesday to the Franco-Venezuelan writer Miguel Bonnefoy, for The Jaguar's Dreamalready crowned with the Grand Prix du roman of the French Academy in October. “It’s a prize that I’ve been waiting for for 10 years,” declared the winner at the Carnavalet-Histoire museum in Paris, recalling that his mother tongue was not French but Spanish.
The Jaguar's Dreampublished by Rivages, is in the line of family sagas between South America and France by this 37-year-old author. He won with five votes, compared to four for Emma Becker with Pretty Evil.
Alia Trabucco Zeran, also awarded for Own
Another South American was rewarded, with the Femina prize for foreign novel, the Chilean of Palestinian origin Alia Trabucco Zeran, for Own (Robert Laffont editions). “It is an honor that Own is the first Latin American novel to win the Foreign Femina Prize,” she declared.
Paul Audi, test price
The Femina essay prize was awarded to Paul Audi for Stand your ground (Stock), an essay on anti-Semitism in France whose writing has been disrupted by events in the Middle East since October 7, 2023. “I feel in some way inclined to defend the fight against anti-Semitism in a point of view which is not, precisely, that of a Jew, because I am not one,” declared this Franco-Lebanese philosopher.
A special prize was also awarded to the Irishman Colm Toibin, for Long Island (Grasset). Present at the award ceremony, he thanked the translator of his 15 books, Anna Gibson.
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