For a year, relations within the Goncourt Academy have been electric. Suddenly, two camps clashed in the prestigious jury, about a trip to Lebanon, then on the choice of their last winner. Story.
by Denis Cosnard
The rite has been unchanging since 1914. All the first Tuesdays of the month, the ten jurors of the Goncourt Prize meet in the same private fair, on the first floor of the Drouant restaurant, near the opera, in Paris (2 E ). Their next lunch on December 6 may be tense. Sheltered from patinated woodwork, they can come back cold on the two crises they have just lived in a month. A trip to Lebanon which torn the Goncourt, then deliberations with a knife for the award of their annual Grand Prix. The two storms showed the existence of two irreconcilable clans within the jury, and left the nerves raw. “We were in the fury, regrets Paule Constant, one of the” ten “. Afterwards, we no longer know where we are. The head turns …” Philippe Claudel, the secretary general of the Academy, confirms it: ” We cross a small area of turbulence. “
The discord broke out on November 3. This Tuesday, living quickly (Flammarion), by Brigitte Giraud, was only crowned at the end of the fourteen regulatory towers, by 5 votes against 5 in Giuliano Da Empoli for the Mage du Kremlin (Gallimard). Only the preponderant vote of the president of Goncourt, Didier Decoin, made the difference. Unheard of since 1996. Above all, the jurors who defended Giuliano Da Empoli exceptionally emerge from their reserve to express their spite, even their anger. “I have known presidents, at the Goncourt Academy, who have always said: Attention, let’s not leave for a 14 e tour, because I don’t want to have to use my second voice” , launches in the Pierre Assouline corridors, an arrow aimed at Didier Decoin. “I regret that we have not crowned a big book,” said Tahar Ben Jelloun in the process, swallowing to live quickly to the rank of “little autobiography”.
Battle of succession
Beyond these arms passes, it is power within the Goncourt Academy which is in question. A major issue. The Academy is certainly only a modest association law 1901, a club of ten novelists of mature age which have no other power than that of words. The price they award every fall to a “work of imagination” is just 10 euros. It is nevertheless the most prestigious in France, the one who sells hundreds of thousands of copies, can upset the life of an author, save the year of booksellers and upset the classification of publishers. In addition, the Goncourt Academy now attributes a series of other prizes, and participates in the promotion of French literature in around thirty countries. Who must have the high hand on all this?
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