Four very different novels, the predictions were difficult for Goncourt 2023. And it was Jean-Baptiste Andrea, who won in the 14th round ahead of Neige Sinno, Gaspard Koenig and Eric Reinhardt. Watch over her (ed. The Iconoclast), which weighs in at 600 pages, is remarkably written, a bit like an adventure film, with lively dialogues and really good twists and turns.
Which is no coincidence: Jean-Baptiste Andrea is a former screenwriter and director of horror thrillers (Dead end, 2003). Became a novelist late in life (My queen, 2017), he recounts in what is, at 52, only his fourth novel, the tumultuous relationship between two childhood friends in interwar Italy: Michelangelo known as “Mimo”, boy poor and small who would become a brilliant sculptor, and Viola, a courageous and enlightened young woman but perhaps from too wealthy a background. In the turpitudes of the rise of fascism, Mimo will have to “watch over her”, over Viola in the face of the tyranny which prevents her from spreading her wings. But also on the mysterious pieta that it inspired in him, a sculpture which has the gift of disturbing those who look at it…
“What a writer, what inspiration! »
“What a writer!” What a breath! exclaimed Anne while taking part in the vote for readers of 20 minutes for Goncourt. Watch over her is first of all an extremely original creation with a strong universe. To read it is to experience something from the inside that you will never forget. It’s rare. Great evocative force. Added to all this is a humor, so fine, so intrinsic, I think, to what Jean Baptiste Andrea is. And finally, what definitely won me over was the humanity that runs through this novel, that is to say its depth. And when I heard Jean-Baptiste Andrea say that he is interested in the suffering of others because he believes he has been spoiled by life… I then understand that his lofty view explains my enthusiasm.
Published in August for the literary season, Watch over her had already won the Fnac 2023 novel prize. It appeared in almost all the selections for the major literary prizes of the fall and still remains in the penultimate list of the Interallié which will be awarded on November 22.
For her part, the Renaudot prize was awarded to Ann Scott for The insolent (Calmann-Lévy), intimate novel about a woman who decides to change her life.