The Prix Goncourt jury met this Tuesday for lunch at Drouant. Challenge: establishing the list of eight contenders still in the race, after the first list published at the beginning of September. For those who prefer to see their glasses half empty, this is also an opportunity to find out who the eight eliminated are.
Were selected: Jean-Baptiste Andrea, Dominique Berbéris, Gaspar Koenig, Laure Murat, Eric Reinhardt, Antoine Sénanque, Neige Sinno and Jean-Philippe Toussaint.
This second selection confirms the shift adopted by the jury, which has stopped excluding autobiographical books in recent years. He did so until then, wanting to crown a work of “imaginative prose”, as mentioned in the will of Edmond de Goncourt.
Incest and homosexuality
Snow Sinno (sad tiger) and Laure Murat (Proust, family novel) thus sign very personal essays, one after having suffered a long incest, the other after having had to break with his aristocratic environment because of his homosexuality.
Jean-Philippe Toussaint (The Chessboard) is in a similar vein, evoking his passion for chess.
The other five novels selected are fiction, such as Sarah, Susanne and the writer by Éric Reinhardt, which tells the story of the fall of a woman who leaves her husband.
Failed: Mokhtar Amoudi, Vincent Delecroix, Cécile Desprairies, Émilie Frèche, Dorothée Janin, Kevin Lambert, Akira Mizubayashi, Leonor de Recondo.
The third list, comprising the four finalists, will be made public on October 25. Like every year, 20 minutes will submit these four novels to the vote of its readers and Internet users. The Prix Goncourt will be awarded on Tuesday November 7.