The 2024 Medici Prize awarded to Julia Deck for “Ann of England”

The Foreign Medici goes to Eduardo Halfon and the essay prize goes to Reiner Stach.

Some victories are less bitter than others. We can only be delighted to see the writer Julia Deck win the Medici Prize this Wednesday, November 6 for her book “Ann of England”. It is for a text which contrasts with the rest of her work that the author of “Monument national” is today rewarded, thus succeeding Quebecer Kevin Lambert.

The one who became known for her scathing social comedies (“Viviane Elisabeth Fauville”, “Private Property”…) changed register (and publisher, moving from Editions de Minuit to Seuil) and this bet paid off paying. A personal and tense story about her elderly mother, who suffered a stroke, “Ann of England” contains at its heart a family secret. In September, our journalist Anne Crignon dedicated a portrait to Julia Deck and saluted her as “Ann of England” “a gripping story of finesse and brilliance”.

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On the foreign side, the prize goes to Guatemalan novelist Eduardo Halfon for “Tarantula” (translated from Spanish by David Fauquemberg, Quai Voltaire), the story of two young brothers who, in 1984, find themselves in a survival camp for children Jews in Guatemala. One morning, awakened by screams, they discover that the camp has transformed into something much darker.

As for the price of the essay, it revolved around Kafka, whose centenary of death is being commemorated this year. “Ten versions of Kafka” (Grasset) by Maïa Hruska, a study on the different translations of the Prague writer, was in fact in the final selection. But it is the third volume of “Kafka” (translated from German by Régis Quatresous, Le Cherche Midi), entitled “the Years of Youth”, epic and masterful biography undertaken by German author Reiner Stach, who won the bid.

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Please note: the Médicis Prize jury is made up of Marianne Alphant, Michel Braudeau, Marie Darrieussecq, Anne F. Garréta (president), Dominique Fernandez, Patrick Grainville, Andreï Makine, Pascale Roze and Alain Veinstein.