Kamel Daoud or Gaël Faye? Just a few days ago, persistent rumors had it that the final of the Goncourt would come down to the two authors, both critical and public successes. No one mentioned the names of Sandrine Collette and Hélène Gaudy, who were still in the running. One or the other was bound to win the prize. The question remained: which one?

At 12.45pm, Philippe Claudel of the Goncourt, appeared at the top of the staircase leading from the first floor to the first-floor Salon Goncourt to speak. “ The 122^e prix Goncourt was awarded in the first round to Kamel Daoud for Houris at Gallimard. “

At 12:53 pm, Kamel Daoud posted a message in tribute to his parents on X: “This is your dream, paid for by your years of life. To my late father. To my mother, still alive, but who remembers nothing. No words exist to say a true thank you.

In choosing to crown Kamel Daoud, the jury first and foremost made an act of political courage. Let’s recall the facts: Algeria decided to ban Gallimard from the Salon International du Livre d’Alger because of the author’s novel. In Hooray Aube, a pregnant and mutilated survivor of Algeria’s black decade (1991-2002), recounts the tragic story of those bloody years to the little girl she is expecting. At the time, Atiq Rahimi, an ardent defender of freedom of expression, wrote an open letter in support of the author. Now, in awarding him the Goncourt, the jury has affirmed the writer’s total freedom in the same unwavering way. A writer who is used to disturbing.

Journalism is essential, but it will never be enough to tell the story of a war.

Kamel Daoud

Columnist and journalist Kamel Daoud was born in 1970 in Mostaganem, Algeria. A “Balzacian” character, in his own words, at the age of 20 in the 1990s, he was a villager who finished school and moved to the city. Very early on, he decided to go into journalism, and joined the Quotidien d’Oran and investigates the massacres committed in his country. Despite the sleepless nights and the unspeakable imprint on his retina, Daoud writes, edits and bears witness. “ Journalism is essential, but it will never be enough to tell the story of a war. I often say that a wound is measured by journalism, and told through literature. “he told Madame Figaro . At the dawn of the 2000s, he began publishing and making a name for himself as an author. Noteworthy: Minotaure 504 (2011), selected for the Goncourt short story prize and in particular his novel Meursault, Counter-enquiry (Gallimard, 2014). As a result of this publication, he was the target of a fatwa when he was a finalist for the Goncourt – he narrowly missed out on the prize, and went on to win the Goncourt for first novel.

On Sunday, Kamel Daoud shared on X a photo of an Iranian student, Ahou Daryaei, undressed in front of her university in Teheran. With Hooray(which means “beautiful woman promised by the Koran to faithful Muslims who will enter paradise”), Daoud knew he would cause a stir by denouncing the amnesia of the barbaric acts committed by Islamists. His words are incisive and implacable. In fact, he chose to use as the title of his book Article 46 of the law introduced by the Algerian authorities, known as the “ 2005 Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation “punishing “ imprisonment for three to five years and a fine of 250 000 Algerian dinars to 500 000 Algerian dinars anyone who, by his declarations, writings or any other act, uses or instrumentalizes the wounds of the national tragedy, to undermine the institutions of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, weaken the State, harm the honorability of its agents who have served it with dignity, or tarnish the image of Algeria internationally (…) “ However, if Houris is a cry of denunciation, the author defended himself at L’Obs, “ to write a war, but how to get out of it. That’s why I called my character Dawn; it’s the difficult hour, between two worlds, where sun and night cohabit, but where things begin again. “

The choice was therefore far from easy when faced with a Gaël Fayean eminently likeable and popular man (he has already sold over 173,000 copies of Jacaranda). In addition, two books about massacres (Hooray evokes the civil war in Algeria in the 1990s, Jacaranda the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide) or at least its survivors. With Daoud, the jurors were undoubtedly touched by this incantatory language, these words of fire and blood, “a long polyphonic song”.as noted by Le Figaro littéraire in its September 5 issue. “ The rhythm is varied, the words abundant, disorganized, made up of snippets, like a conversation, with confidences, digressions and bursts of voice. […] Daoud’s book has the force of a flooding wadi after a terrible storm called civil war. Impetuous, unpredictable and fascinating, it sweeps away everything in its path. “

Gallimard saves its new literary season

Last but not least, the Goncourt has crowned Gallimard with Daoud. And it’s fair to say that Gallimard was in for a real treat. Firstly, because unlike in previous years, when it was able to console itself with the Grand Prix de l’Académie française (Giuliano da Empoli in 2022 and Dominique Barbéris in 2023), Gallimard had not won any of the new literary season’s prizes. In 2022, Giuliano da Empoli lost out to Brigitte Giraud (Vivre vite, Flammarion), and in 2023 it was Éric Reinhardt’s turn to concede defeat to Jean-Baptiste Andrea (Veiller sur elleL’Iconoclaste).

That said, Gallimard still had a very good chance of winning the prize. It already had four Goncourt authors published by the company, and last April welcomed a new juror in Françoise Chandernagor. The jury has ten members. What’s more, unlike Grasset, which hasn’t won the Goncourt since 2005, Gallimard won it just four years ago. And what’s more, with Hervé Le Tellier, who became the second best-selling Goncourt in history.