A genre-blurring, polyphonic thriller about the double lives of passengers aboard a flight from Paris to New York, has won this year’s Goncourt prize. French author Hervé Le Tellier was awarded France’s top literary prize for his novel “l’Anomalie” (The Anomaly). This year marked a change to tradition for the prize; for the first time in over a century, the Goncourt Academy didn’t meet to decide the winner at the gastronomic Druant restaurant, but instead met over the video conference platform Zoom.
After initially postponing the prize in solidarity with the country’s bookshops which were forced to close down during France’s second lockdown, the Goncourt Academy announced it would take place in time for booksellers to feel the benefits in holiday shopping sales. The bookshops were able to reopen their doors this weekend.
FRANCE 24’s Book Editor Catherine Khédir-Clifford tells us more.
