Only four remain. On Tuesday 27 October, the Académie Goncourt unveiled the final shortlist of its 124th edition, the most prestigious literary prize in the French language. The winner, who will succeed Laurent Mauvignier, will be announced on Tuesday 3 November at the Drouant restaurant in Paris.
The four finalists
Yannick Haenel, for La Solitude des professeurs est infinie (Gallimard).
Philippe Jaenada, for L’Inconnue du quai de Javel (Flammarion). The author, who made his name with Le Chameau sauvage (Prix de Flore 1997), has specialised in investigations into real criminal cases, notably with La Serpe, winner of the Prix Femina 2017.
Clémentine Mélois, for Choses que je croyais perdues (L’Arbalète/Gallimard), the story of a woman preparing to move house after a break-up.
Sylvain Prudhomme, for De l’autre côté du lac (Éditions de Minuit).
A detail that will no doubt fuel conversation: all four finalists’ publishing houses belong to the Madrigall group, the family holding company chaired by Antoine Gallimard.
The shadow of artificial intelligence
This edition will above all be remembered for the Thélyson Orélien affair. His novel C’était ça ou mourir, published by Grasset, was withdrawn from the first shortlist at the end of September following accusations of plagiarism and the use of AI.
Speaking to franceinfo, the Académie’s president, Philippe Claudel, regretted that the author had not come forward to explain how he worked, and reaffirmed that the machine has no place in the prize. The jurors say they checked that the other books in contention had not been written with the help of artificial intelligence.
€10… and a huge bookshop effect
The Goncourt’s symbolic prize money, €10, says nothing about its real weight: the famous red band can turn a novel into a bookshop phenomenon. Readers have a week to make their predictions, ahead of the Goncourt des lycéens, expected at the end of November.
Sources : La Libre, Franceinfo, ActuaLitté
Photo: Maison Weshoot / CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
