“Sport gives me endurance and resistance,” he recently confided to Books Weekly publisher Alban Cerisier, Secretary General of Gallimard. Endurance, resistance and courage are what the 459 French and foreign novelists (fewer than the 466 last year and much fewer than the 701 applicants in 2010) present on the starting line of this literary rentrée will need. Because, as they say, it is not enough to participate, you have to either win medals or win on the applause meter (translation, get good sales in bookstores) – the optimum being obviously to mix the two.
Many of them, especially among the 311 French writers, are starting to shudder and harass their press office. The deadlines are coming fast: on September 3rd, the first selection of the Goncourt Academy; on the 5th, the Renaudot jury list; on the 10th, the Dames du Femina join the dance… As for the 68 first-time novelists, things are also shaking with, on September 2nd, the designation of the Première Plume prize, created by the Furet du Nord/Decitre group (with which L’Express is associated), and, on September 14th, the presentation of the Stanislas prize at the Nancy Salon “Le Livre sur la place”.
Each year has its share of headliners, to whom we dedicate, for 10 of them, our first reviews of this new school year: Kamel Daoud, Emma Becker, Gaël Faye, Amélie Nothomb, Abel Quentin, Alice Zeniter, Aurélien Bellanger, Olivier Norek, Philippe Jaenada, Thibault de Montaigu. Tenors to which we should add Mélissa Da Costa, Maylis de Kerangal, Carole Martinez, Véronique Olmi, Grégoire Bouillier, Olivier Guez, Yann Queffélec, Muriel Barbery, Jérôme Ferrari, Sandrine Collette, Jean–Noël Orengo, Abdellah Taia, Yasmina Reza…
But it’s not always the stars who win the jackpot. Who would have bet (apart from L’Express) in August 2021 and August 2023 on Mohamed Mbougar Sarr and Jean-Baptiste Andrea, future winners of the Goncourt? The competition, whether literary or sporting, always has surprises in store. Finally, let’s not forget the foreign competitors like Nathan Hill, Michael Cunningham, Colm Toibin, Richard Flanagan, Alaa El Aswany, Viola Ardone, Peter Stamm, JM Coetzee, James Ellroy, Pedro Almodóvar, Colson Whitehead, Stephen Markley and Cristina Comencini. They too should make their voices heard.