In December 2019, representatives from seven British universities met in London to decide on the winner of the inaugural Choix Goncourt UK. Writing on this occasion, James Hughes, one of the representatives from Oxford, explained ‘by the end of the evening there was undoubtedly a mood of enthusiasm and optimism for next year’s Choix Goncourt’. James was right and this year’s Choix Goncourt UK, was most certainly met with optimism: 12 students took part in the initial discussions at Oxford and the seven universities from last year were joined by five others meaning the final jury consisted of 24 students. In total over 100 students participated in the project. However, the second edition of the Choix Goncourt UK had to take place under rather different conditions.
Every participating student read the four books in the Prix Goncourt’s final shortlist: Les Impatientes by Djaïli Amadou Amal, L’historiographe du royaume by Maël Renouard, L’Anomalie by Hervé le Tellier and Thésée, sa vie nouvelle by Camille de Toledo. These four make for gripping but also pleasingly heterogeneous examples of modern francophone literature. The students travelled from de Toledo’s journey into the archives of a family’s history and trauma with images from the author’s own family to Renouard’s exploration of Morocco under the early years of Hassan II’s reign written in the style of Saint-Simon and with fascinating intertextuality; from le Tellier’s Oulipo-style fiction which is at once dystopian, a thriller and a detective story to Amal’s polyphonic novel based on real events that explores the injustices facing women in the Sahel. With such a rich variety of fiction to choose from, there was really something for every reader’s preference. This was reflected in the very close vote for the University of Oxford’s Choix Goncourt winner, which saw le Tellier’s L’Anomalie win by the extremely slim margin of a single vote.
Whereas last year student representatives from participating universities attended the jury discussion and inaugural prize ceremony in the majestic halls of the Institut Français in London, owing to consequences of the pandemic, the location was substituted for the equally glamorous halls of Zoom. At face value, it seemed inevitable that such a necessary measure would result in some drawbacks, most notably the less favourable conditions of the jury discussion, and reduced possibilities for students, even within their own universities, to communicate and discuss the shortlisted books. Yet, as the saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining, and indeed the necessary virtual format surrounding the Choix Goncourt 2020 did bring with it an unexpected host of positives. In deciding Oxford’s winner of the Choix Goncourt, we held a number of book-club-style discussions on Zoom. This enabled our year abroad students to take part. Therefore, going forward, even in a post-COVID world that will (hopefully!) soon be upon us, we might see the vestiges of virtual discussions make their way into a hybrid set-up to will involve year abroad students. After all, if we make a point of emphasising the role the Choix Goncourt played in encouraging a sense of community beyond academic work, then it only seems fair to extend this same sense in such a way as to create a united and inclusive atmosphere.
In fact, when the time came for the official inter-university jury discussions on the morning of 18th March, the virtual format did nothing to diminish how vivacious and engaging they were for both jury members and adjudicators alike. It was particularly interesting to see how many of the universities this year, much like us, had been torn between the same two books: Les Impatientes and L’Anomalie. And so, each university defended its overall preference, and, in the end, the choice of the UK’s winner came down to just one vote. The final ceremony took place in the afternoon, hosted at the Institut Français and livestreamed on YouTube by the French Ambassador Catherine Colonna and Oxford’s own Professor Catriona Seth, who were joined virtually by David Campbell, this year’s president of the jury and Camille Laurens from the Académie Goncourt. At the ceremony, four students presented the shortlisted books and a fifth announced the winner, which was ultimately Les Impatientes by Djaïli Amadou Amal – an indisputably deserving winner.
During both our Oxford-based debates and the discussions between the universities, a whole range of reasons were given in support of Les Impatientes: from the honesty of the language to the intelligence of the structure. However, the most convincing arguments were based on the compelling nature of Amal’s message and its timeless pertinence. Amal, a Cameroonian writer, envisages literature as a political and emancipatory tool and her novel gives a voice to women in the Sahel who face various forms of violence in their daily lives: rape, forced marriage, polygamy and domestic abuse. Whilst 2020 and 2021 will be remembered as the years of the pandemic, it is perhaps important not to lose sight of the other fights that have continued in the world, including the fight for equality. Amal’s novel presents a unique, delicate and rarely-heard perspective in feminism that underlines the importance of understanding how violence against women in different places takes many different forms. Yet, despite this, the realities described by Amal’s protagonists still strike us in the UK. At the end of the ceremony, French Ambassador Catherine Colonna, who was wearing orange (the colour of the United Nations’ campaign to end violence against women across the world), ended with the powerful words “she was only walking home”, reminding us of the kidnapping and death of Sarah Everard that had occurred in London in the weeks before. Les Impatientes was not only a deserving winner of the Choix Goncourt UK 2020, but an appropriate one too. The novel is a powerful reminder of the role literature can play in the continuing fight for women’s equality.
To read more about Les Impatientes, see Hannah Hodges’ post on our outreach blog Adventures on the Bookshelf.
To watch the award ceremony or conversations between each of the shortlisted authors and Professor Catriona Seth, please visit here.