Dominique Fortier may not have won the Prince Pierre of Monaco Foundation Literature Prize last year. But the Quebec writer joined the Literary Council as “representative of French-language Canadian literature,” succeeding the great Marie-Claire Blais in that position.
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This was announced by his publisher Alto on Monday “with a heart swollen with pride”.
Indeed, we can say that within this council, composed of ten members of the French Academy, including Dany Laferrière, Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, Amin Maalouf and Jean-Christophe Rufin, four members of the Goncourt Academy, Dominique Fortier is in a prestigious position Company will be, including Tahar Ben Jelloun and Philippe Claudel, as well as representatives of Congolese, Belgian and Swiss letters, chaired by Her Royal Highness The Princess of Hanover.
Since 1951, the Prince Pierre of Monaco Foundation’s literary prize, which is endowed with 25,000 euros, has honored a writer for his entire work. Big names in world literature have already won it, such as Jean Giono, Eugène Ionesco, Françoise Sagan and Marguerite Yourcenar. The only three Quebecers to appear on this list are Anne Hébert in 1976, Marie-Claire Blais in 2002, and Michel Tremblay in 2017.
Board members are also invited to award the Discovery Grant, which is awarded to the best first French-language novel.
Dominique Fortier’s work has already won numerous awards, including the Renaudot 2020 for Les ville de papier. In 2022, she was one of five finalists for the Prince Pierre of Monaco Foundation Literature Prize, won by Lebanese-born writer Vénus Khoury-Ghata in October.