The Académie Goncourt, which awards the most prestigious French literary prize, is in the hot seat after a first selection of 16 authors, one of whom is the companion of a juror, the latter having moreover publicly crushed a competitor.
“The literary awards season has barely started, and already, the first selection of Goncourt seems marred by a question of conflict of interest. One of the 16 writers selected is none other than the companion of one of the jurors, the novelist Camille Laurens. The members of the jury knew it and ignored it, ”detailed public radio France Inter on Tuesday on its website.
The Goncourt jury denied any conflict of interest after these revelations on the links between Camille Laurens and the philosopher and essayist François Noudelmann, selected for Cadillac children, an account of the life of his grandfather and his father through the two world wars. “We felt that this was not a reason to penalize a good book,” the president of the Académie Goncourt, Didier Decoin, told France Inter.
The secretary of the Academy, Philippe Claudel, told AFP that the rules had been strictly followed.
“There was a majority of us who had appreciated this book and who had discovered afterwards that there was a link between François Noudelmann and Camille Laurens, about which we questioned her”, he said. reported.
“There was a vote to say that yes, we could include the book, that it was not an ethical or deontological problem, which would be the case if it came from a spouse, a descendant, ‘an ascendant. And he gathered a majority that allowed him to be in the selection. For the Academy, the conflict of interest has been ruled out, ”he added.
France Inter raises another potential conflict of interest: harsh criticism by Camille Laurens in the newspaper The world from Postcard Anne Berest, September 16, eight days after the publication of the first list of Goncourt where this novel appeared.
The custom is that the jurors of Goncourt do not express themselves publicly on the books in the running and remain in solidarity with the choices of the Academy in all circumstances.
“I didn’t like it at all. And we’ll talk about it, ”Decoin told France Inter.
“At the next meeting, I would be in favor of having this written, if not in our rules, at least in our oral rules: when one of us has a platform in the press, whatever it is, he refrains from talking about a book that is in the selections, ”added Philippe Claudel.
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