“We cannot conceive of a writer being arrested”

In 2015, the writer Boualem Sansal received the Grand Prix du Novel from the French Academy for his book, 2084: the end of the world. This literary prize, created a century earlier, rewards a novel written in French, regardless of the nationality of its author. It is awarded by all the members of the French Academy present in session on the day of the final vote before being solemnly presented under the Dome a few weeks later. By its age as much as its prestige, this prize establishes a sort of literary genealogy between each living winner and their deceased predecessors, including some of the greatest writers of the 20th century.

It is enough to cite François Mauriac, Joseph Kessel, Georges Bernanos, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry or even Jean d’Ormesson to be convinced of this but beyond that, this distinction establishes a sort of literary kinship between all those who had the honor to see their book thus rewarded…