(Paris) Jean-Baptiste Andrea won the Goncourt on Tuesday for Veiller sur elle, a 500-plus page fresco that combines the history of 20th-century Italy, thwarted love and passion for art, published by the small publisher L ‘Iconoclast .
Published at 9:11 am. Updated at 11:53 a.m
Hugues HONORÉ, François BECKER and Mona GUICHARD Agence France-Presse
The 52-year-old writer was elected in the 14th round, evidence of the disagreements within the jury chaired by Didier Decoin, whose vote ultimately counts double.
For the most prestigious French-language literary prize, he met Eric Reinhardt, who was long considered the favorite, Gaspard Kœnig and Neige Sinno, who received the Femina Prize on Monday.
“It’s an extraordinary moment and I didn’t think I would ever experience this in my life,” exclaimed Jean-Baptiste Andrea over lunch near Drouant, the restaurant where the Goncourt has traditionally been awarded since 1914.
“I think of all the children who dream about it and say to themselves: I can’t do it. I want to tell them: Be unreasonable.” “Art is freedom. I have always believed in romance, romance has never died,” he added, before paying tribute to his editor Sophie de Sivry, who died in May.
Veiller sur elle is the fourth novel by Jean-Baptiste Andrea, who made his first steps in the cinema before devoting himself to literature late in life, six years ago. This fresco about sculpture and Italy was already awarded the Fnac Prize at the end of August.
Mimo, born poor and apprenticed to a mediocre sculptor, tells of his journey and his love story with Viola Orsini, the ambitious heiress of a prestigious family, in the midst of Italy’s fall into fascism.
The Goncourt Prize guarantees significant sales in the last two months of the year, the most important for booksellers. On average they reach around 400,000 copies. Jean-Baptiste Andrea has already reached more than 50,000, a good start.
Goncourt 2022, Vivre vite by Brigitte Giraud, disappoints from this point of view and remains under 300,000 copies.
Last round
She too was only nominated in the very last round. And the most influential publisher of French letters, Gallimard, had already been defeated at the last minute.
Immediately after the Goncourt and also in the Drouant restaurant, the Renaudot jury announced its 2023 prize, which will be awarded to Ann Scott, 58, for Les insolents (Calmann-Lévy editions).
The novel tells of the arrival “in the middle of nowhere” of Alex, a film music composer, who decides to leave the capital to reinvent herself and live “elsewhere and alone.” The character is a fictional double of the author, a former Queen of Paris Nights based in Brittany.
Born to a Russian photographer and a French art collector, Ann Scott grew up in Paris before moving to London at 17. She was a model and a drummer in a punk band.
The author of “Asphyxia” and “Superstar,” who began writing at the age of 29, paid tribute to her father’s memory. “That’s what he hoped for from me. Now he’s up there. And maybe he wanted it,” she told AFP.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne welcomed the winners of these two prizes. “One pursues the experience of love, the other of loneliness; These two works invite us to think about the world around us. This is the power of literature,” she wrote on X.
The Renaudot Prize for Essay was awarded to Jean-Luc Barré for the first volume of a biography of over 900 pages: De Gaulle, une vie: l’homme de Personne (1890-1944), aux Grasset editions.
The Renaudot Prize for Paperback went to Manuel Carcassonne for The Reversal.