The second lists of the grand prizes of the fall having fallen – the French Academy, the last to the maneuver, having concocted its own Thursday afternoon -, this is the opportunity, for us, to take stock of the authors most acclaimed by literary juries and the general public. Thus, three novelists are still in the running for three of the prizes, namely Gaël Faye (Goncourt, Renaudot, Femina), Kamel Daoud (Goncourt, Renaudot, Interallié) and Miguel Bonnefoy (Académie française, Femina, Médicis). Note that these are three French-speaking novelists!
In terms of sales, Gaël Faye and Kamel Daoud stand out, and are moreover (if we are to believe the German prognosticators) given favorites to win the Grail, that is to say the Goncourt (awarded on November 4 ). With some 120,000 sales, according to Edistat, Jacaranda (Grasset) by the Franco-Rwandan rapper is largely in the lead, while Houris (Gallimard) by Algerian journalist Kamel Daoud has sold some 55,000 copies. Behind them, The Jaguar’s Dream (Shore) by the Franco-Venezuelan writer Miguel Bonnefoy stores around 15,000 copies. A completely honorable score in these difficult times (for the bookstore).
Among the eight authors still present on at least two lists, large differences will be noted. With, at the top of the basket, Olivier Norek (Renaudot and Interallié), who collected some 64,000 copies with his Winter Warriors (Michel Lafon), Abel Quentin (Académie française and Interallié), who is not unworthy with the 18,000 copies of Hut (Éditions de l’Observatoire), Philippe Jaenada (Goncourt and Renaudot) including Casualness is a beautiful thing (Mialet-Barrault) sold 17,000 copies; conversely, Abdellah Taïa (Goncourt et Médicis and 4,500 copies for The Bastion of Tears at Julliard), Julia Deck (Femina et Médicis and 3,500 for Ann of England au Seuil), Antoine Choplin (Renaudot and Femina and a small 4,000 for The Boat of Masao at Buchet-Chastel), Hélène Gaudy (Goncourt and Femina and a small 2,000 at éditions de l’Olivier for Archipelagos) are relatively worth it. Just a little more effort, fellow readers! Finally, within the company of authors selected only once, we will notice the very good score of the Goncourable Maylis de Kerangal (nearly 43,000 copies for Surf day at Verticales) or even that of her alter ego Sandrine Collette (26,000 for Madelaine before dawn at Lattès).
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Han Kang’s triumph
But it’s not just the selections that bring life. This is how in this 2024 school year, without any “distinction”, Amélie Nothomb stores nearly 80,000 copies of her Impossible Return (Albin Michel), Alice Zeniter more or less 34,000 for Hit the epic (Flammarion), Olivier Guez 28,000 for Mesopotamia (Grasset), Yasmina Khadra 26,000 for Almond heart (Mialet-Barrault) and Jérôme Ferrari 20,000 for Sentinel North (South Acts).
Finally, let us salute, and this has nothing or almost nothing to do with it, our new Nobel Prize for Literature, the South Korean Han Kang, whom we had the chance to meet last year when she came on the occasion of the release in France of his superb novel, Impossible goodbyes (Grasset). The members of the jury highlighted “the unique awareness of the links between the body and the soul, the living and the dead” of the winner who, through “her poetic and experimental style, has become an innovator in the field of contemporary prose “. Let us rejoice and once again salute the eighteenth woman to receive the Nobel Prize out of 116 laureates, and the first South Korean to be honored since 1901.
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