Students’ Novel Prize: making modern literature accessible

France Culture and Télérama open the 9th Students’ Novel Prize. Five novels released during the autumn publishing period 2021 are competing for this Prize, which jury is exclusively made of students. Registrations are open until October 10.  

The France Culture-Télérama Prize is a French annual literature prize created by public radio France Culture and the cultural magazine Télérama, with the support of the French higher education ministry and the Centre national du livre. This Prize awards a novel written in French and released during the publishing season in autumn. Its jury is entirely made of students, whether French or other, from any study course and from anywhere in France.

Boosting reading

With the objective to discover living authors and make contemporary French literature accessible to a young public, in collaboration with French universities and independent bookshops, the Students’ Novel Prize seeks to encourage students to read and share their reading.

Organisers explain that the future student judges, who will be selected from anywhere in France and overseas, thanks to the commitment of the participating universities and bookshops, will have the opportunity to:

- read the five novels written in French and published in September;
- speak with authors during many meetings organised in universities or partner bookshops, but also online;
- share and talk among students on social medias;
- choose and celebrate the laureate during a special event organised in mi-January on the CROUS boat in Paris, a stone’s throw away from the François Mitterand National Library.

Simple participation conditions

Last year, over 1,500 students throughout France became members of the jury, and “settled the Students’ Novel Prize as an important prize of the literature publishing period”.

To facilitate the participation in the 9^th edition of the Students’ Novel Prize, conditions are simple and quick. Just complete the online form, prove your student status with your card or certificate, and send a critic of the last novel you’ve read (any novel, excluding novels in the selection) in written (10 lines, 1,500 characters), audio or video (1 minute) format.

Modern situations and characters

The five novels included in the 9^th edition selection, for which the preselected student-jury will have to vote after validation of their application, describe modern situations or characters. France Culture and Télérama briefly present these contents to spur your curiosity to read it!

Here are the five novels selected:

- Rien ne t’appartient (You own nothing) by Nathacha Appanah (Gallimard publishing)
Something else than sadness and solitude is tormenting Tara since her husband died. Inside of her, something is rising and rumbling, like a wave. The resurgence of a story she thought buried, the reappearance of who she had been before...

- Ne t’arrête pas de courir (Never stop running) by Mathieu Palain, (L’iconoclaste publishing)
From both sides of the jail parlour, two men have been facing each other every Wednesday for two years. One, Mathieu Palain, has become a journalist and writer, but had dreamt of becoming a professional football player. The other, Toumany Coulibaly, fifth child of 18 in a Malian family, is an exceptional athlete and a serial burglar. Through the months, the two thirty-years old men become friends.

- Feu (Fire) by Maria Pourchet (Fayard publishing)
Laure, a university teacher, is married, mother of two daughter and owner of a detached house. At 40 years old, she thinks of herself as the result not of her desires, but of effort and compromise. Clément, single, 50 years old, bores himself to death in the finance sector, in his glass tower. Each will become the necessary shock for the other.

- La fille qu’on appelle (The girl you call) Tanguy Viel (Editions de Minuit publishing)
When he’s not boxing on a ring, Max Le Corre is the driver of the city’s mayor. Most of all, he’s the father of Laura, who, at 20, has decided to come back to live with him. So Max thinks it would be a good idea to ask the mayor to help her finding a flat. 

- Mahmoud ou la montée des eaux (Mahmoud, or the rise of waters) by Antoine Wauters (Verdier publishing)
An old man rows on his boat, alone in the middle of immense waters. Below, his house, engulfed by the El-Assad Lake, born from the construction of Tabqa dam in 1973. Closing his eyes on the war rumbling, donning a mask and an air tube, he dives, and it’s his entire life he sees again.

French-written books all over the world

Facilitating access for the young to books in French was also an issue of the Assembly for books written in French all over the world that were held in Tunis on September 23 and 24. This important event “to boost La Francophonie” is included in the plan for French language announced by the French president in 2018. It resulted in “50 resolutions to promote the dissemination of books in French throughout the world”, including the encouragement and support of States in the implementation of public policies on books and reading and, above all, the desire to make young people a priority target of these public policies on books and reading. 

To know more: 

- 9th edition of the Students’ Novel Prize

- Assembly for books written in French all over the world

Photo credit:  ©France culture