The Academie Goncourt Anniversary at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina
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Alexandria, 9 December 2004–
In the centennial celebration of the award for French literature Le Prix Goncourt, granted by the Academie Goncourt, Paris, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) has extended an invitation to Mrs. Edmonde Charles-Roux, President of the Academy and a number of its board members, as well as winners of the prize for the year 2004, to participate in this anniversary at the BA, 11–12 December 2004.
The conference, beginning at 3:00 pm on Saturday, 11 December, will shed light on the Academy’s history and activities through lectures by Mrs. Edmonde Charles-Roux, and several of the Academy members including Mr. Michel Tournier and Mr. Didier Decoin. These eminent literary figures will meet with Francophone students and teachers on Sunday, 12 December.
The Goncourt Prize is named after Edmond Louis Antoine de Goncourt (1822–96) and his brother Jules Alfred Huot de Goncourt (1830–70), two French literary historians and novelists. As les deux Goncourt the brothers started out as artists, touring France in 1849 and keeping notes that were soon to turn them toward literature. They became art critics and historians of art, dramatists, promoters of Japanese art, and in collaboration, the authors of a number of well-known novels of the naturalist school, including Sœur Philomène (1861), Renée Mauperin (1864, tr. 1887), Germinie Lacerteux (1864), Mme Gervaisais (1869), and a study, The Woman of the Eighteenth Century (1862, tr. 1927). In 1851 the brothers began the Journal des Goncourt (9 vol., 1887–96; tr. of selections by Lewis Galantière, 1937), a publication devoted to an in-depth account of Parisian society for 40 years. They affected an elaborate and contorted style, employed telegraphic brevity on occasion, and often selected subjects of sensational value. Their work paved the way for both naturalism and impressionism. After Jules’s death, Edmond wrote the novels La Fille Élisa (1877, tr. Elisa, 1959), Les Frères Zemganno (1879), and Chérie (1884).
In his will, Edmond de Goncourt provided for the founding of the Academie Goncourt (officially recognized 1903), which grants an annual award for French literature. Ever since, the prize has been granted to a number of prominent writers and novelists around the world, among which are Marcel Proust, André Malraux, Simone de Beauvoir and Romain Gary, as well as Taher Ben Jelloun and Amin Maalouf.
The Goncourt jury, consisting of ten members, meets each month at the Drouant Restaurant in Paris, France to select the book it deems to be the best new work in French literature. Although the prize comes only with a nominal purse of $10, it guarantees media attention and soaring book sales. New members are elected by older ones, on the basis of their ability to write in French, regardless of their nationalities or origins. Current board members include Edmonde Charles-Roux (President), Didier Decoin, Françoise Nourissier, Daniel Boulanger, Michel Tournier, Robert Sabatier, Françoise Chandernagor, Jorge Semprun and Bernard Pivot, to start by January 2005.