French and Francophone literary prizes, 2021-22

Almost as soon as the European Languages Across Borders blog was created, it started recording prizes for French language books (see French prizewinners for 2013). Before that, French literary prizewinners already featured in the webpages dedicated to Cambridge University Library’s French Collections. Prizes have long been an indicator of literary and cultural trends, reflecting the reception of contemporary writing, and contributing to its promotion and diffusion, on a national and international level. 2022 can be remembered as the year when Annie Ernaux became Literature Nobel Prize laureate. Prizes are also a useful tool in collection development. Here is a list of French and Francophone prizewinners for 2021-22. Among Francophone prizes, the Prix Carbet de la Caraïbe et du Tout-Monde still has to be awarded.

Comar d’Or: En pays assoiffé / Emna Belhaj Yahia, Des Femmes Editions, 2021, C206.d.6950

Dutch prizewinners

We have written before about the usefulness of the Libris Geschiedenis Prijs longlists and shortlists for helping us to choose suitable books on Dutch history for our collections. This is a topic that we have not revisited since 2019 so in this post I will highlight some of our relevant purchases from the last three years and also consider a couple of other new prizes worth keeping an eye on.

Italian literary prizewinners 2022

As the year 2022 draws to a close we take a look at the Italian literary prizes awarded during the course of the year.

Strega prize 2022:

This was awarded to Mario Desiati for his novel Spatriati. This psychological novel, or coming-of-age story, can be found in the UL at C217.c.3730.

Bagutta prize 2022:

The Bagutta prize is not restricted to any particular literary genre. This year it was awarded to Benedetta Craveri for her work La contessa, a biography of Virginia Verasis di Castiglione, a cousin of Count Camillo di Cavour.

Annie Ernaux, 2022 Literature Nobel Prize laureate

Annie Ernaux received the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory”. Although a prolific and successful writer who from the 1970s has tackled personal and provocative subjects (such as abortion and female sexuality), she has often been criticized for the alleged poverty of her style. 

French-speaking literary prizewinners 2020-2021

The importance of literary prizes in the French cultural landscape can be measured by  the sheer number of them. There are many mainland prizes, which tend to concentrate on books written by French authors, but also many prizes issued in French overseas regions; these often widen the field by considering French-speaking writers of different nationalities. We acquire a wide selection of these prizes every year. Beyond France, mainland and overseas, we also keep up-to-date with the latest winners of the Tunisian prize Comar d’Or and of the international Prix des 5 continents de la Francophonie.

Below is a list of the prizewinning books we acquired in the past two years. For a presentation of some of the prizes, see this blog post.   

Comar d’Or: 2020: Merminus infinitif : roman by Samir Makhlouf C216.c.9081; 2021: Le chat et le scalpel by Soufiane Ben Farhat (on order)

Grand prix du roman de l’Académie française: 2020: La grande épreuve : roman by Étienne de Montety C216.c.8723; 2021: Mon maître et mon vainqueur : roman by François-Henri Désérable C206.d.9685

Grand Prix du Roman Métis: 2020: Un monstre est là, derrière la porte : roman by Gaëlle Bélem C206.d.5375; 2021: D’amour et de guerre by Akli Tadjer C218.c.3277