{"id":60760,"date":"2022-04-30T23:08:18","date_gmt":"2022-04-30T23:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/villa-albertine.org\/the-villa\/la-carte-postale-anne-berest-wins-first-ever-choix-goncourt-united-states\/"},"modified":"2023-08-23T07:49:28","modified_gmt":"2023-08-23T07:49:28","slug":"la-carte-postale-anne-berest-wins-first-ever-choix-goncourt-united-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/villa-albertine.org\/va\/uncategorized\/la-carte-postale-anne-berest-wins-first-ever-choix-goncourt-united-states\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018La carte postale\u2019 by Anne Berest Wins First Ever \u2018Choix Goncourt United States\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York, April 30, 2022<\/strong> \u2013 Anne Berest\u2019s La carte postale <\/em>has been awarded the first annual Choix Goncourt United States<\/em><\/strong> (US Goncourt Prize Selection). Following a day of formal group deliberations, the jury of students from five US universities announced their decision in a ceremony at Albertine bookstore, in Villa Albertine\u2019s Manhattan Headquarters. The evening was chaired by internationally bestselling author, poet, and essayist Siri Hustvedt.<\/strong> Opening remarks were made by Secretary General of the Acad\u00e9mie Goncourt Philippe Claudel<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n

The Prix Goncourt is France\u2019s most prestigious literary prize. International Goncourt Selections\u2014made by university students in over 25 countries\u2014are a global literary barometer, gauging how the Goncourt Prize shortlist resonates with different younger audiences around the world. This year the Choix Goncourt<\/em> comes to the United States for the first time, presented by the Acad\u00e9mie Goncourt and organized and supported by Villa Albertine.<\/p>\n\n

La carte postale: <\/em><\/strong>In January 2003, among an assortment of greeting cards, Anne Berest found a strange, anonymous postcard in her mailbox. On one side was an image of the Op\u00e9ra Garnier, and on the other, the names of four members of her family who died in Auschwitz in 1942. Twenty years later she decides to investigate, retracing the Rabinovitch\u2019s extraordinary destiny with the help of her mother, a private detective, and a criminologist. Anne Berest also seeks to understand how her grandmother, Myriam, was the only one to escape deportation. This moving book is at once an investigation, the novel of Berest\u2019s ancestors, and a quest for the meaning of the word \u201cJew\u201d in a secular life.<\/p>\n\n

Anne Berest<\/strong> published her first novel in 2010, La fille de son p\u00e8re <\/em>(Seuil). This was followed by Les patriarches<\/em> (Grasset, 2012), Sagan 1954<\/em> (Stock, 2014) and Recherche femme parfaite<\/em> (Grasset, 2015). Gabri\u00eble <\/em>(Stock, 2017), co-written with her sister Claire, tells the story of their great grandparents Francis Picabia and Gabri\u00eble Buffet. Anne Berest is also the author of the plays La Visite<\/em> and Les filles de nos filles<\/em> (Actes Sud, 2020), as well as the television series Mytho<\/em> (Arte, Netflix), which has received numerous awards in France and abroad. Her latest book, La carte postale<\/em> (Grasset), is one of the stars of the new literary season.<\/p>\n\n

French literature students from five universities in the Centers of Excellence network<\/a>\u2014Duke University, Harvard University, New York University, Princeton University, and Yale University\u2014spent months studying the nine finalists for the 2021 Prix Goncourt.<\/p>\n

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Argenis Apolinario<\/p>\n\t\t<\/figcaption>\n\t<\/figure>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very happy to be a part of the first Goncourt Selection in the United States. French literature has been enormously important to my development as a human being and as a writer,\u201d noted author, essayist, and Choix Goncourt<\/em> co-chair Siri Hustvedt. \u201cThe future lies with curious, seeking, reading, dynamic young people all over the earth, and literature is a crucial tool in forging pluralism, tolerance, and democracy, at a time when these principles are under dire threat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

La carte postale<\/em> was selected from a shortlist of nine nominees:<\/p>\n\n