Miguel Bonnefoy receives the Femina prize for The Jaguar's Dreamhis novel in French exploring family ties between France and South America. This award marks a new achievement for the author already crowned by the French Academy.
The Femina novel prize was awarded Tuesday to the Franco-Venezuelan writer Miguel Bonnefoy for his work The Jaguar's Dreamalready awarded in October by the Grand Prix du roman of the French Academy.
“This is an award that I have been waiting for for ten years. So you can imagine how honored and happy I am,” Bonnefoy said at the Carnavalet-Histoire museum in Paris, where the presentation took place.
He added: “I am particularly touched, because my mother tongue is Spanish, and to see a book in French, in a language that is not mine, to be distinguished like this, that says a lot about France.”
Published by Rivages editions, The Jaguar's Dream is part of the family sagas linking South America and France, a recurring theme for this 37-year-old author. Bonnefoy won this prize in the second round, obtaining five votes to four for Emma Becker and her book Pretty Evil (Albin Michel editions).
The Femina Prize for Foreign Novels was awarded to the Chilean writer of Palestinian origin Alia Trabucco Zeran for Own (Robert Laffont editions). “It is an honor that Own “the first Latin American novel to receive the foreign Femina Prize,” she declared.
The Femina prize for the test was awarded to Paul Audi for Stand your ground (Stock editions), a reflection on anti-Semitism in France whose writing has been marked by recent events in the Middle East since October 7, 2023. “I feel driven to defend the fight against anti-Semitism from a external point of view, because I am not Jewish,” clarified the Franco-Lebanese philosopher.
A special prize was also awarded to Irish writer Colm Toibin for his body of work, including his latest novel Long Island (Grasset). During the ceremony, he warmly thanked Anna Gibson, the translator of his fifteen books.
“I know that my character in Long Island et Brooklyn is fictional. But I wanted to assure you how she would vote today,” he explained with humor, quoting a passage from the novel: “She became an American when she began to hate Nixon.”
After the Goncourt prize awarded to Kamel Daoud and the Renaudot prize awarded to Gaël Faye on Monday, the season of major autumn literary prizes continues on Wednesday with the Médicis prize.
With AFP
