The First Novel Prize in the French field was awarded to Laure Gauthier for Melusine reloaded (Corti).
The winning work takes place in a near future, almost similar to ours, where Mélusine, the legendary snake fairy, makes her return. She reappears on a street corner in a sanitized metropolis, where omnipresent, finely orchestrated images conceal the desolation of the landscapes and the control of emotions. This post-democratic world, saturated with pollution, is dotted with Open Solid Landfills (OSD), Enhanced Tourist Zones (ZTA) and forests where only ticks, giant snails and a few sparrows remain.
Omnipotent surveillance systems have generated a truncated language, saturated with acronyms, while committees ensure at all costs the artificial maintenance of illusions to entertain Crossing Tourists (TT). Mélusine returns with one objective: to propose new practices and dream of other shores to inhabit…
Laure Gauthier, who lives in Paris, has already, among other things, published essays and collections of poetry, such as stone kaspar (The Purloined Letter, 2017) and the corpora cavernosa (LansKine, 2022).
The Prize for First Novel in the Foreign Domain was awarded to Greta Olivo for The color black does not exist (Phébus, translation Romane Lafore).
Livia has everything going for her: a promising life, a loving family, fascinating eyes. She runs fast, very fast, winning a series of victories on the tracks. But one day, a shadow trips her just past the finish line. Little by little, objects begin to disappear, swallowed up by an insidious evil that is eating away at his retina. Faced with the inevitable progression of the disease, Livia understands that she will no longer be able to win as she had imagined. With the support of her guardian, Emilio, she will have to redefine her way of inhabiting the world, while discovering her true identity. Who said black couldn't be a color?
Greta Olivo, born in 1993 in Rome, was freely inspired by her own family history to shape her character.
Chaired by Charles Dantzig, the jury is made up of: Annick Geille (Honorary President) Pauline Dreyfus, Jean-Claude Lamy, Gilles Pudlowski, Jean-Pierre Tison and Maud Ventura. Next year the jury will welcome 3 new members: Philippe Jaenada, Maylis de Kerangal and Mohamed Mbougar Sarr.
The 2024 winners succeed Charles Salles, and his Face B (Round table) for the French novel, and Tom Crewe and The new lifefor the foreign novel (Christian Bourgois, translation Etienne Gomez).
Photo credits: Britchi Mirela CC BY SA 4.0
By Hocine Bouhadjera
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