Every year since 1948, the Best Foreign Book prize rewards a novel and an essay published abroad and translated into French.
This year it is Hisham Matar who stands out in the Fiction category with his novel My friendstranslated from English by David Fauquemberg and published by Gallimard. It follows the journey of Khaled, a young Libyan expatriate in London and addresses questions of identity and internal conflict linked to each exile.
In the Non Fiction category, it is Anna Funder who wins with L’invisible Madame Orwelltranslated from English (Australia) by Carine Chichereau and published by Éditions Héloïse D'Ormesson. In her work, the writer gives a voice to Eileen O’Shaughnessywife of the author of 1984 (Gallimard), through letters and testimonies from those close to him. This book was notably among the selections for the Femina prize for foreign novels and the Médicis prize in the Essay category.
Awards ceremony on November 28
The two winners succeed the Irish writer Sebastian Barry pour In the good old days of God (Joëlle Losfeld), translated from English by Laëtitia Devauxand to the Flemish journalist Chris De Stoop pour The Book of Daniel (Globe), translated from Dutch as Anne-Laure Vignaux. The award ceremony will take place on Thursday, November 28.
The jury for the Best Foreign Book prize was, this year, composed of Daniel Arsand, Anne Freyer (prize secretary), Manuel Carcassonne (prize secretary), Nathalie Crom, Gerard de Cortanze, Catherine Enjolet, Christine Jordis, Jean-Claude Lebrun, Alexis Liebaert, Joëlle Losfeld, Anne-Marie Métailié et Joel Schmidt.
