Book sales: the nice surprise “Attacking the earth and the sun”

Prices can do wonders. The 49th Inter Book Prize, unveiled on Monday June 5, could be one of these. Its winner, Mathieu Belezi, almost unknown despite an already rich work of 23 novels, has already settled in 15th place. It is true that his novel, Attack the earth and the sun, carried by a superb language, deals with a subject both original and “concerning”, colonial Algeria of 1830.

But the happiest in the affair could well be his publisher, Frédéric Martin, a “spiritual”, who decided a few months ago to republish most of Belezi’s work, starting in this month of March, by the very beautiful little king (released in 1999 by Phébus). A godsend, therefore, this price for his small publishing house, Le Tripode. And a beautiful story which, all things considered, recalls that of another “modest” publisher, Philippe Rey, and its author, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, crowned Goncourt 2021 (and with more than 500,000 copies sold).

4. The Rift

By Franck Thilliez

Screenwriter, novelist and author of more than thirty novels, including pandemic, Franck Thilliez has been one of the sure values ​​of French crime fiction since 2005 and The Chamber of the Dead. In this new opus, we find his dear commissioner Franck Sharko in bad shape. After a bogus arrest, the latter is sidelined, and forced to investigate outside of any legal framework. A most dangerous investigation.

2 Brotherhood and its networks. Investigation

By Florence Bergeaud-Blackler

Insults and death threats fell hard on the anthropologist and CNRS researcher Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, accused by her detractors of “primary anti-Islamism”. Result: far from deterring readers, they boosted his book The Brotherhood and its networks, published in January and whose sales continue to climb.

Germany

Ein Hof und elf Geschwister

Von Ewald Frie

German historian Ewald Frie has ten siblings, born between 1944 and 1969, who all lived on the parental farm. It was with these first-hand witnesses that he investigated to paint the portrait of a peasantry which experienced dizzying upheavals during the 1960s. Barely published, his essay moved to 1st place in the ranking of Spiegel.