The Prix Goncourt is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year". The prize carries a symbolic reward of only 10 euros, but results in considerable recognition and book sales for the winning author. Four other prizes are also awarded: prix Goncourt du Premier Roman, prix Goncourt de la Nouvelle, prix Goncourt de la Poésie (poetry) and prix Goncourt de la Biographie (biography). Of the "big six" French literary awards, the Prix Goncourt is the best known and most prestigious. The other major literary prizes include the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française, the Prix Femina, the Prix Renaudot, the Prix Interallié and the Prix Médicis.
Amin Maalouf is a Lebanese-born French author who has lived in France since 1976. Although his native language is Arabic, he writes in French, and his works have been translated into over 40 languages.
Bernhard Schlink is a German lawyer, academic, and novelist. He is best known for his novel The Reader, which was first published in 1995 and became an international bestseller. He won the 2014 Park Kyong-ni Prize.
Patrick Galen Dempsey is an American actor and racing driver. He is best known for his role as neurosurgeon Derek "McDreamy" Shepherd in the ABC medical drama series Grey's Anatomy from 2005 to 2015, and returned again from 2020 to 2021. He is also known for his leading man romantic films roles, including in Enchanted (2007). Dempsey has received nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and two Golden Globe Awards, and was named as People's Sexiest Man Alive in 2023.
Man's Fate is a 1933 novel written by André Malraux about the failed communist insurrection in Shanghai in 1927, and the existential quandaries facing a diverse group of people associated with the revolution. Along with Les Conquérants and La Voie Royale, it forms a trilogy on revolution in Asia.
Hervé Le Tellier is a French writer and linguist, and a member of the international literary group Oulipo. He is its fourth president. Other notable members have included Raymond Queneau, Georges Perec, Italo Calvino, Jacques Roubaud, Jean Lescure and Harry Mathews. He won the 2020 Prix Goncourt for The Anomaly.
Bernard Lazare was a French literary critic, political journalist, polemicist, and anarchist. He is known as the first Dreyfusard.
Jean-Philippe Toussaint is a Belgian novelist, photographer and filmmaker. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages and he has had his photographs displayed in Brussels and Japan. Toussaint won the Prix Médicis in 2005 for his novel Fuir, the second volume of the « Cycle of Marie », a four-tome chronicle published over ten years and displaying the separation of Marie and her lover. His 2009 novel La Vérité sur Marie, third volume of the cycle, won the Prix Décembre.
Sam Taylor is a British author, translator and former pop culture correspondent for The Observer, a job he left in 2001. His first book, The Republic of Trees, was published in 2005 and received critical acclaim. His second novel, The Amnesiac, tells the story of James Purdew, a man obsessed with uncovering the events of three years of his life about which he remembers nothing. Taylor lives in Texas with his family.
Laura Lyn "Lynnie" Greene, also known as Lyn Greene is an actress, writer, director and producer in the television industry. In addition to her work as a producer, she is possibly best known as an actress for appearing as Young Dorothy in The Golden Girls.
Laurence Ruel, known by her pen name Camille Laurens, is a French writer and winner of the 2000 Prix Femina for Dans ces bras-là. Laurens is a member of the Académie Goncourt.
Europa Editions is an independent trade publisher based in New York. The company was founded in 2005 by the owners of the Italian press Edizioni E/O and specializes in literary fiction, mysteries, and narrative non-fiction.
Mathias Énard is a French novelist. He studied Persian and Arabic and spent long periods in the Middle East. He has lived in Barcelona for about fifteen years, interrupted in 2013 by a writing residency in Berlin. He won several awards for Zone, including the Prix du Livre Inter and the Prix Décembre, and won the Prix Goncourt/Le Choix de l’Orient, the Prix littéraire de la Porte Dorée, and the Prix du Roman-News for Rue des Voleurs. He won the 2015 Prix Goncourt for Boussole (Compass). In 2020 he was Friedrich Dürrenmatt Guest Professor for World Literature at the University of Bern.
Ben Schnetzer is an American actor. He was nominated for two British Independent Film Awards for his performance in the film Pride. His other films include The Book Thief, The Riot Club, and The Grizzlies.
Joël Dicker is a Swiss novelist.
Rama Ayalon is an Israeli French-to-Hebrew translator. She has translated more than 100 books of classic and contemporary literature in the fields of prose, philosophy, and psychoanalysis. Her translations include important philosophical works such as Pensées by Blaise Pascal and Totalité et infini by Emmanuel Lévinas. Among the prose authors she has translated are Michel Houellebecq, Georges Simenon, Marguerite Duras, Guy de Maupassant, Romain Gary, Milan Kundera, Delphine de Vigan, and Leïla Slimani.
Leïla Slimani is a French-Moroccan writer and journalist. She is also a French diplomat in her capacity as the personal representative of the French president Emmanuel Macron to the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. In 2016, she was awarded the Prix Goncourt for her novel Chanson douce.
The prix littéraire de la vocation is a literary prize. Established in 1976 by the fondation Marcel-Bleustein-Blanchet pour la vocation, it is intended to help a young French-speaking novelists aged 18 to 30 years.
Richard Levine is a writer, director, actor and producer. He wrote and directed the film Submission (2017), starring Stanley Tucci, Kyra Sedgwick and Addison Timlin. The film is based on the best selling novel Blue Angel, by Francine Prose and premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival. His first film, Every Day (2010), starring Liev Schreiber, Helen Hunt, Eddie Izzard and Brian Dennehy, was a New York Times critic's pick.
The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair is an American mystery drama television miniseries, based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Joël Dicker, that premiered on Epix. The series was directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud and stars Patrick Dempsey, Kristine Froseth, Ben Schnetzer, Damon Wayans Jr., and Virginia Madsen. Prior to its debut in the United States, the series was sold and premiered in international markets.
