“Well-being” wins the Grand Prize for American Literature

OI loved the last paragraph. We loved the first page. Loved each of the 688 pages, as we had, in 2021, been enthusiastic about our first novel The ghosts of the old country. Novelist Nathan Hill won the Grand Prize for American Literature, with Well-beingpublished by Gallimard. He succeeds Aleksandar Hemon on the list of this prize which rewards American novels published in France, crowned in 2023 for A world of sky and earth (Calmann-Lévy). The Grand Prize for American Literature is awarded each year by a jury composed of booksellers, journalists and publishers. “It crowns an American novel, which is distinguished by its first-rate literary qualities in order to offer a benchmark to the readers who appreciate this literature in large numbers and the writers who animate it. »

The prize jury initially pointed out, before gradually refining its selection, around ten works, including Fool’s paradise by Richard Ford, American Boys de Khashayar J. Khabushani, Strippers still need legal advice by Iain Levison or even Blackouts by Justin Torres or Absolution d’Alice McDermott.

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His final choice fell on Nathan Hill’s second novel, Well-beingone of the favorites of the literary season of the Evening. In this fresco which spans several decades, Nathan Hill, author of the highly acclaimed The ghosts of the old country in 2021, scrutinizes a couple of middle-class Americans. They met young in the 90s in Chicago, he dreaming of being a photographer, she starting out as a psychologist. For a long time, they observed each other from the bay windows of their neighboring apartments, before planning the adventure of a life together. Twenty years later, what has become of this mismatched couple, reduced to deciding whether in their new apartment under construction, they will have separate bedrooms or will each have their own “master suite” in a city that has gentrified at the same speed? than them.

Through the destiny of this couple, Nathan Hill examines the mirage of love, as he examines the American dream and, on a richly nourished psychological level, the placebos wit, with ferocity and absolutely devastating humor. With this book, Nathan Hill is today considered one of the keenest observers of the transformations of contemporary America, particularly in the light of social networks.

Well-beingNathan Hill, translated from English (USA) by Nathalie Bru, Gallimard, 668 p. 26 euros, e-book 16 euros.

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