Tomorrow Monday, the prestigious Renaudot and Goncourt prizes will be awarded. For each of them, an Alsatian is in the running. The Strasbourg Olivier Guez for Renaudot and the Alsatian of origin Yannick Haenel for Goncourt. We say shit to them even if it’s not great literature.
Tomorrow Monday will be a big day. Come what may. As every year, under the golds of Drouant and the crackling of flashes will be announced at 12:45 sharp and almost simultaneously the winners of the Goncourt Prize et Renaudot. And this year, by chance of writing and talent, two Alsatians are each part of the short list. Olivier Guez for Renaudot. Yannick Haenel for Goncourt.
Alsace is in danger of a double blow.
Olivier Guez, his work
Olivier Guez is therefore one of the five finalists for the Renaudot prize for the “Novel” category. The one who will perhaps succeed Yasmina Reza. Yes still.
This year the jury is chaired by Frederic Beigbeder who will therefore have a double voice and who will be surrounded by colorful personalities. Patrick Besson, Dominique Bona, Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud (general secretary), Jérôme Garcin, Louis Gardel, Franz-Olivier Giesbert, Christian Giudicelli, Jean-Noël Pancrazi and J.-MG Le Clézio, the Nobel Prize for Literature.
All these beautiful people will therefore have to decide and perhaps distinguish the novel of our 43-year-old Strasbourg resident. “The Disappearance of Josef Mengele.”
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A novel published by Grasset (in this kind of competition, this detail is far from being one) which traces the flight of Josef Mengele “the angel of death” from Auschwitz to Latin America. In the form of a fictionalized investigation, the writer recounts the adventures of this doctor without soul or scruples who flees the justice of his country through Argentina, Paraguay and then Brazil. A thirty-year run that will end in a pitiful way. A paranoid little old man who died on a Brazilian beach in 1979.
Died without ever having been judged.
Olivier Guez, his life quickly made
This is not the first time that the Strasbourgeois has been interested in the “banality of evil” and Nazism. With “The Impossible Return, A History of Jews in Germany since 1945” Olivier Guez investigated the memory of the Jews of Germany, their identity and their strange relationship to the homeland of Goethe and Himmler.
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For his bio, quickly, he studied at Sciences Po Strasbourg. Then at the London School of Economics and at the College of Europe in Bruges. He now works as freelance journalist pfor several major international media, including the New York Times, Le Monde, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Le Figaro Magazine, L’Express, Le Point, Politique Internationale, Der Freitag, Der Tages Anzeiger, Das Magazin and Il Foglio. the author of two novels, 5 essays and a screenplay.
Yannick Haenel, his work
Yannick Haenel is one of the last four novelists selected for the Prix Goncourt. For the record, Olivier Guez was also competing for the Goncourt but he was finally removed from the short list.
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The Goncourt will also be awarded tomorrow. He too at Drouant, one minute before Renaudot. It is tradition. The Goncourt Academy is chaired by Bernard Pivot and is composed of Pierre Assouline, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Françoise Chandernagor, Philippe Claudel, Paule Constant, Didier Decoin, Virginie Despentes, Patrick Rambaud and Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt. Again, beautiful feathers. They will have the heavy task of appointing the successor to Leïla Slimani.
Yannick Haenel was therefore selected for his latest book “Hold Your Crown” published by Gallimard (I repeat what I said earlier). We suspect it: we are far, far from the universe of his compatriot. There’s a way to have fun. While remaining serious, of course.
And indeed, the first pages as well as the “pitch” (as they say) set the tone.
See instead. A man wrote a huge script about the life of Herman Melville: The Great Melville, which no producer wants. One day, he is given the telephone number of the great American filmmaker Michael Cimino, the legendary director of Journey to the End of Hell and The Gates of Paradise. A meeting takes place in New York: Cimino reads the manuscript. There follows a series of incredible adventures between the Musée de la Chasse in Paris, the island of Ellis Island off the coast of New York, and a lake in Italy. We meet Isabelle Huppert there, the goddess Diana, a Dalmatian named Sabbat, a demonic neighbor and two sleazy mustaches; there is also a pretty doctoral student, a devious concierge and a very aggressive butler looking like Emmanuel Macron.
What was I telling you ?
Yannick Haenel, his life quickly made
Good there we grant you, the author is not really Alsatian in the sense that he never really lived there. No, in fact Yannick Haenel has Alsatian origins, he has family in Alsace Bossue. He has also spent many vacations there.
That counts, right?
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Otherwise Yannick Haenel is 50 years old and is the author of 7 novels including Jan Karski, Fnac Novel Prize and Interallié Prize in 2009. He is also a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. In short, he is not a novice in competitions.
Now that the introductions are made, there is more to tell them shit. Not very literary I agree.
