After the passionate discussions of the members of the jury, gathered around a breakfast in May, here are the results of this new edition. And it was in Paris, on June 4, at the Hôtel Regina Louvre, that the authors received their prize.
Roman français : Missed call, de Carole Fives
Gallimard_photo_Francesca_Mant
The author. Carole Fives creates a work of her own. Never taking herself seriously, with her enormous laugh, her overflowing generosity, she composes her books casually. As if she were not really an author, but rather like a visual artist (she is a graduate of Fine Arts) who would have started writing by chance.
The story. Après A woman on the phoneone of her first successes, Carole Fives takes up the thread. This elderly mother who most often calls into the void, who is not represented anywhere, who would no longer be interesting, who has done what she had to do – her children are raised, adults – and who refuses to be silent: Carole Fives forces us to hear her. She thus transcribes the words of a generation that does not want to be forgotten.
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On aime : Both scribe and performer, Carole Fives invented a literary genre. These calls that disturb, these calls that we listen to with an absent ear, these repetitive calls, these words that exaggerate, she delivers them to us, with a form of brutality, that of everyday life. A banally funny, banally heroic, banally vital voice, which moves us and makes us laugh. C. S.
SP
Bio/RécitÂ: Women on an azure background, by Chantal Thomas
Ph. Matsas / Le Seuil
The author. Academician, Chantal Thomas, 18th century specialiste century, wrote several novels set during this period: Farewell to the Queen (Femina prize 2002, adapted for cinema in 2012) and The Princess Exchange (adapted for cinema in 2017). We also owe him more intimate stories dedicated to swimming and the sea.
History. The portraits of six women – Queen Victoria, the singer Sophie Cruvelli, the painter Marie Bashkirtseff, the writers Katherine Mansfield and Colette, Jackie, the author’s mother – and their relationship to the Cote d’Azur. This “land of light” allowed everyone to come back to life after a fall, a bereavement, a physical or moral disaster.
On aime : his pen, as precise as it is exquisite, which paints people as well as eras and atmospheres. And which makes these figures of the past present, palpable, as close as sisters. An art full of nuances, where erudition blends with grace, and a reflection on an essential space of freedom for women, which we find in Invent your own room (unpublished essay published by Rivages pocket), which brings together female portraits under the sign of Virginia Woolf’s famous bedroom. M. T. H.
SP
Comics/graphic novel: Be a woman and shut up. In the eye of Delphine Seyrig, by Nina Almberg and Arianna Melone
Arthur Alt / SP
The authors. Director of sound documentaries for France Culture and Arte Radio, Nina Almberg is also an author and screenwriter of comic strips. Arianna Melone is Italian and has published several graphic novels about little-known or forgotten women: Gianna, The Fools’ Ball, The Daughters of Sapphô.
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The story. The album intertwines the trajectories of two passionate women, one by the sea, Hermine de Saussure – who once gave up going around the world by sailboat with her friend Ella Maillart – and the other by cinema, Delphine Seyrig, her daughter, actress for Alain Resnais, François Truffaut, Jacques Demy… who is committed to the feminist cause and seeks roles in tune with his convictions.
On aime : the softness of the line and the colors, which only underlines the strength of character of two extraordinary women having difficulty meeting, understanding, loving each other. And the tribute paid to Delphine Seyrig who, long before MeToo, had denounced in her film Be beautiful and shut up how much actresses were already victims of sexist violence. B. B.
SP
Roman étranger : My refuge and my stormd’Arundhati Roy
Gallimard_photo_2026_Francesca
The author. Born in 1961, in Kerala (India), Arundhati Roy received the 1997 Booker Prize for The God of Small Nothingswhich has just been republished in Folio. This tireless activist for social justice and environmental causes is also the author of essays denouncing capitalism and Hindu nationalism.
The story. Oscillating between memoirs, autobiography and paradoxical tribute to his mother, My refuge and my storm tells the story of Arundhati Roy – her childhood in Kerala, her bohemian life, even poverty, in Delhi, her foray into cinema and television, the global success of God of Small Things– through the prism of his relationship with Mrs. Roy, feminist pioneer and founder of a most respected school, who was both his love and his nightmare, his refuge and his storm.
On aime : this most romantic self-portrait of a labyrinth without any pretense and with great intelligence, brilliance and nuance, an intimate relationship which forged the personality and perhaps the art of Arundhati Roy. We also discover the picture of an entity which equally overflows all qualifiers: India, its beauties, its madness, its wanderings, from the caste system to the contempt for women, including omnicorruption, anti-Muslim pogroms, state violence. M. T. H.
SP
