Let’s put aside the romance trend, the immortal world of crime fiction, Amélie Nothomb, a phenomenon in her own right, Panayotis Pascot, the darling of social networks, and let’s examine the other novelists on our list. For once, almost all of them appear on one or more selections for the fall prizes, the prize going to Neige Sinno, present on at least six lists (Décembre, Goncourt, Femina, Médicis, Flore, Blù Jean-Marc Roberts). Sorj Chalandon, Jean-Baptiste Andrea, François Bégaudeau, Eric Chacour, Maria Pourchet, Agnès Desarthe, Laure Murat, Akira Mizubayashi… also received honors from the juries. Just like first-time novelist Alice Renard, already winner of the Méduse and Vocation prizes. Would 2023 bring about reconciliation between the jurors, the press, booksellers and the general public? Or would a jury’s attention snowball? The eternal chicken and egg question…
Seasons (volume I). An autumn to forgive you
By Morgane Moncomble
It became a refrain: self-published on Wattpad, spotted by an editor, followed by waves of young followers, growing success. Thus these ladies of romance triumph, as is the case with Morgane Moncomble, born in 1996 in Argenteuil. Fun fact, we learn on Wikipedia, the Sorbonnarde is the author of a memoir on “The rewriting of Greco-Roman myths in contemporary literature”.
Washed Memory
By Nathacha Appanah
Born on Mauritius, living in Paris since 1998, the author of Tropic of violence has not forgotten her roots, and her grandparents, whose destiny she delicately retraces here: that of the thousands of Indian indentured laborers who came to work in the sugar plantocracies of Mauritius following the abolition of slavery. A story full of grace boosted by The Great Bookstore.
UNITED STATES
Code Red
By Kyle Mills
Son of former FBI agent Darrel Mills, series creator Kyle Mills Mark Beamonbecame the successor of Ludlum then of Vince Flynn, after the latter’s death in 2013. In Code Red, his 9th (and the last, he announced) thriller in the Mitch Rapp series, the hero must thwart the plot of a Russian faction. And climbs to the top of the rankings of New York Times.