The Goncourt 2023 will be awarded on Tuesday at 12:45 p.m. Only four of them still dream of winning the most important literary prize of the fall.
It is the most awaited day in the entire French literary world. On Tuesday at 12:45 p.m. the announcement of the 2023 Goncourt Prize will take place. The location is unchanging, the Drouant restaurant in Paris, which will welcome the jury and of course a lot of journalists. This year the excitement is high because there are still four novels in the running for the finalists – this is tradition – but rumor has it that no winner has been chosen yet. That’s pretty good: last year, the big favorite “The Magician of the Kremlin” by Giuliano da Empoli was beaten after 14 rounds and with the decisive vote of jury president Didier Decoin by Brigitte Giraud, “Vivre vite” appeared published by Flammarion. The forces present are listed here in alphabetical order.
Jean-Baptiste ANDREA, “Watch Over Her,” The Iconoclast
Back: “In the great game of fate, Mimo drew the wrong cards. He was born poor and apprenticed to an insignificant stone sculptor. But he has genius on his hands. Almost all the fairies looked at Viola Orsini. As the heiress of a distinguished family, she spent her childhood in the shadow of a Genoese palace. But she has too much ambition to accept the place assigned to her. »
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Why he can win : The popular writer Jean-Baptiste Andrea has won numerous awards for his previous novels, but none of the main prizes of the literary season. He would also offer L’Iconoclaste, a publishing house, to produce his first Goncourt.
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Gaspard KŒNIG, Humus, The Observatory
Back: Two agricultural science students, troubled by the environmental crisis like their entire generation, reject defeatism and set out to change the world. Kevin, son of farm workers, founds a vermicomposting start-up and takes on the uniform of the perfect defector in the green capitalism scene. Arthur, a child of the bourgeoisie, tries to regenerate the family farm destroyed by pesticides, but encounters the reality of rural life. As they learn, the two friends put their ideals to the test.
Why he can win : Candidate for the 2022 presidential election – he did not receive the necessary sponsors – Gaspard Koenig is a well-known media figure at 40 years old. His ecological learning novel is a Houellebecquian fable about the disillusionment of politics and friendship and hits the nerve of the times. He would also offer his first goncourt to the editions of L’Observatoire.
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Éric REINHARDT, Sarah, Susanne and the writer Gallimard
Back: Sarah entrusted her life story to a writer she admired so that he could turn it into a novel. In this novel, Sarah’s name is Susanne. At the beginning of this story, Susanne no longer feels as loved as she once did. Every evening her husband retreats to his office and leaves her alone with her children. At the same time, she realizes that he owns 75 percent of her marital home. Worried, she asks her husband to rebalance the distribution and be more present – to no avail. To force him to react, Susanne tells him that she will be living somewhere else for a while. This decision will trigger a chain of events as disturbing as they are unpredictable…
Why he can win : Of the four, he is the novelist most identified by the general public, beyond just readers. The film adaptation of “Love and the Forests” put him back on the map of authors to follow even before the literary year began. It would be the culmination of a work, more than a single novel, which is often well received by the Goncourt jury. Gallimard, its editor, has already won 38 Goncourt prizes…
Snow SINNO, Sad Tiger, POL
Back: Between the ages of 7 and 14, little Neige was regularly raped by her stepfather. The patchwork family lives in the Alps in the 90s and leads a rather marginal bohemian life. In 2000, Neige and his mother filed a complaint and, after a trial, the man was sentenced to nine years in prison.
Why he can win: It is certainly the most unexpected work of this literary season, but the Femina Prize it has just received seems to crush it in the race for Goncourt. This also removes a thorn in the side of the jurors – “Sad Tiger” is not a novel…