The Prix de la langue française is chronologically the first grand prix of the literary season in France.
Established in 1986 by the city of
Brive-la-Gaillarde in the department of
Corrèze
Corrèze (; oc, Corresa) is a department in France, named after the river Corrèze which runs through it. Although its prefecture is Tulle, its most populated city is Brive-la-Gaillarde. Corrèze is located in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine regio ...
, this prize rewards the work of a personality of the literary, artistic or scientific world, which has contributed significantly, through the style of his/her works or his/her action to illustrate the quality and beauty of the French language. It is presented annually at the opening of the .
The laureate wins 10000 euros.
Jury
The jury of the award, with a rotating presidency, is composed of members of the
Académie française
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
, the
Académie Goncourt
The Société littéraire des Goncourt (Goncourt Literary Society), usually called the Académie Goncourt (Goncourt Academy), is a French literary organisation based in Paris. It was founded in 1900 by the French writer and publisher Edmond de G ...
and other writers.
Laureates
* 1986:
Jean Tardieu
Jean Tardieu (born in Saint-Germain-de-Joux, Ain, 1 November 1903, died in Créteil, Val-de-Marne, 27 January 1995) was a French artist, musician, poet and dramatic author.
Life and career
He earned a degree in literature and worked for a publ ...
* 1987:
Jacqueline de Romilly
Jacqueline Worms de Romilly (; née David, Greek: Ζακλίν ντε Ρομιγύ, 26 March 1913 – 18 December 2010) was a French philologist, classical scholar and fiction writer. She was the first woman nominated to the Collège de France, ...
* 1988:
André Lichnerowicz
André Lichnerowicz (January 21, 1915, Bourbon-l'Archambault – December 11, 1998, Paris) was a noted French differential geometer and mathematical physicist of Polish descent. He is considered the founder of modern Poisson geometry.
Biography
H ...
* 1989:
Michel Jobert
Michel Jobert (; 11 September 1921 – 25 May 2002) was a French politician of the left-wing Gaullist orientation. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs under Georges Pompidou, and as Minister of External Commerce under François Mitter ...
* 1990:
Yves Berger
Yves Berger (14 January 1931 – 16 November 2004) was a French writer and editor.
From 1960 to 2000, he was the literary director of Éditions Grasset, and published several novels in which he expressed his attachment to the United States.
Bio ...
* 1991:
Pascal Quignard
Pascal Quignard (; born 23 April 1948) is a French writer born in Verneuil-sur-Avre, Eure. In 2002 his novel ''Les Ombres errantes'' won the Prix Goncourt, France's top literary prize. ''Terrasse à Rome'' (Terrasse in Rome), received the Fren ...
* 1992:
Alain Bosquet
Alain Bosquet, born Anatoliy Bisk (russian: Анато́лий Биск) (28 March 1919 – 17 March 1998), was a French poet.
Life
In 1925, his family moved to Brussels and he studied at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, then at the Sorbonn ...
* 1993:
* 1994:
Hector Bianciotti
* 1995: not awarded
* 1996:
René de Obaldia
René de Obaldia (22 October 1918 – 27 January 2022) was a French playwright and poet. He was elected to the Académie française on 24 June 1999.
Biography
He was the great-grandson of José Domingo de Obaldía, the second President of Pana ...
* 1997:
François Weyergans
François Weyergans (; 2 August 1941 – 27 May 2019) was a Belgian writer and director. His father, Franz Weyergans, was a Belgian and also a writer, while his mother was from Avignon in France. François Weyergans was elected to the Académie ...
* 1998:
Marcel Schneider
* 1999:
Jacques Chessex
* 2000:
Bernard Pivot
Bernard Pivot (; born 5 May 1935) is a French journalist, interviewer and host of cultural television programmes. He was chairman of the Académie Goncourt from 2014 to 2020.
Biography
Pivot was born in Lyon, the son of two grocers. During Wor ...
* 2001:
Philippe Beaussant
Philippe Beaussant (6 May 1930 – 8 May 2016) was a French musicologist and novelist, an expert on French baroque music, on which he has published widely. He was the founder of the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, of which he was the a ...
* 2002:
Michel Chaillou
* 2003:
Dominique de Villepin
Dominique Marie François René Galouzeau de Villepin (; born 14 November 1953) is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 31 May 2005 to 17 May 2007 under President Jacques Chirac.
In his career working at the Ministry ...
* 2004:
Gilles Lapouge
* 2005:
Jean-Pierre de Beaumarchais
* 2006:
Christiane Singer
Christiane Singer, married name Christiane Thurn-Valsassina (23 March 1943, in Marseille – 4 April 2007, in Vienna) was an Austrian writer, essayist and novelist.
Biography
Her father was of Hungarian origin and her mother was half Russian and ...
* 2007:
Pierre Assouline
Pierre Assouline (born 17 April 1953) is a French writer and journalist. He was born in Casablanca, Morocco to a Jewish family. He has published several novels and biographies, and also contributes articles for the print media and broadcasts f ...
* 2008:
Annie Ernaux
Annie Thérèse Blanche Ernaux (; born 1 September 1940) is a French writer, professor of literature and Nobel laureate. Her literary work, mostly autobiographical, maintains close links with sociology. Ernaux was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize i ...
* 2009:
Jean-Paul Kauffmann
Jean-Paul Kauffmann (8 August 1944, Saint-Pierre-la-Cour, Mayenne) is a French journalist and writer, a former student of the École supérieure de journalisme de Lille (40th class).
Biography
His great-grandfather Michel Kauffmann left Alsace ...
* 2010:
Alain Veinstein
* 2011:
Emmanuel Carrère
Emmanuel Carrère (born 9 December 1957) is a French author, screenwriter and film director.
Life Family
Carrère was born into a wealthy family in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. His father, Louis Carrère d'Encausse, is a retired insurance e ...
* 2012:
Vassilis Alexakis
Vassilis Alexakis ( el, Βασίλης Αλεξάκης; 25 December 1943 – 11 January 2021) was a Greek- French writer and self-translator of numerous novels in Greek, his mother tongue, and French.
Biography
Alexakis, the son of actor Gia ...
* 2013:
Jean Rolin
* 2014:
Hélène Cixous
Hélène Cixous (; ; born 5 June 1937) is a French writer, playwright and literary critic. She is known for her experimental writing style and great versatility as a writer and thinker, her work dealing with multiple genres: theater, literary an ...
* 2015:
Mona Ozouf
Mona Ozouf born Mona Annig Sohier (born 24 February 1931) is a French historian and philosopher. Born into a family of schoolteachers keen on preserving the language and culture of Brittany, she graduated as a teacher of philosophy from the Éc ...
* 2016 :
Philippe Forest
Philippe Forest (born 18 June 1962) is a French author and professor of literature. He has been awarded the First Novel Prix Femina (1997) and the Prix Décembre (2004), and his works have been translated into English, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, K ...
*2017 :
Jean-Luc Coatalem
Jean-Luc Coatalem (18 September 1959, Paris) is a French journalist and writer.
Biography
In the wake of a family of officers, Jean-Luc Coatalem spent his childhood in Polynesia and his adolescence in Madagascar. The incessant removals gave him ...
*2018 :
Pierre Guyotat
*2019 :
Louis-Philippe Dalembert
*2021 :
Pierre Bergounioux
Pierre Bergounioux (born 1949 in Brive-la-Gaillarde, Corrèze) is a French writer. He won the 1986 Prix Alain-Fournier for his second novel, ''Ce pas et le suivant''. And in 2002, he won the SGDL literary grand prize for his body of work.
Works
* ...
*2022 :
Nathacha Appanah
Nathacha Devi Pathareddy Appanah (born 24 May 1973 in Mahébourg, Mauritius) is a Mauritian-French author. She spent most of her teenage years in Mauritius and also worked as a journalist/columnist at ''Le Mauricien'' and ''Week-End Scope'' befo ...
References
External links
Foire du Livre
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prix de la langue francaise
French literary awards
Awards established in 1986
1986 establishments in France