Writer grant
Selection criteria
Must be 30 years of age or younger, have already published a literary work (novel, short story, poems, play) that was not privately printed, and have an idea for a novel. A first chapter and a one-page outline of the general theme must be provided, as well as a statement of intent.
2007
Jakuta Alikavazovic says that she has always been preoccupied with languages: Serbo-Croat, learned from her Montenegrin father and her Bosnian poet mother, French, whose tones and rare terms she loves, and English, which fascinates her...
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2006
“Should I write?” – That is a question that Gaspard Koenig never really had to ask himself. For him, the answer was both obvious and a matter of genetics. “I waited for something to click, without pushing myself,” he says at the ripe old age of 23...
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2006
SPECIAL GRANT
His latest novel, Leurs vies éclatantes [Their beautiful lives], released in September 2007 by Gallimard, received the Prix Fénéon and the Prix Grand-Chosier (ex-Prix Vialatte) awards....
2005
For many years, Jessica Nelson retired early, lulled by the stories her mother read to her. Thus was born her passion for books...
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2005
Even though his life is devoted to literature today, Gendarme claims that he discovered reading rather late: “I only began to read for pleasure when I was 13 or 14 years old. My first literary memory...
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2004
At the age of 25, Claire Legendre has already published short stories, plays and three novels, and has received several literary awards. At 16, she sent her first manuscript
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2003
“A first novel is always the result of all the failed novels written in one’s youth,” jokes David Foenkinos. A true sense of derision, he says, is ...
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2002
SPECIAL AWARD
Valentine Goby lives her life at top speed. She has studied at Sciences-Po, the school of political sciences in Paris, spent six months in the United States, twelve months in Vietnam...
2002
At the age of 27, Florian Zeller is no longer a “promising” young writer, but for good reason: after receiving the Interallié Award for La Fascination du Pire in 2004, he’s now publishing his fourth novel, Julien Parme.
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2001
As a teenager, Arnaud Cathrine hesitated over which of three routes he should take: a career in music and singing, becoming an actor, or writing. In the end, chance and advanced studies...
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2000
His first two novels were books about silence, breakdown and the inability to communicate. With La Nuit je marche, Franck Bijou has tried to shift his point of view, to look at things from another perspective...
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2000
The youngest of the talent grant winners in 2000, François-Xavier Molia has already followed an astonishingly rich literary path: a first novel, Fourbi, published by Gallimard and four short stories published...
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1999
SPECIAL AWARD
Fréville was trained as a town planner. After completing his studies at the Sorbonne, he was employed as day worker in a centre for drug addicts in Versailles...
1999
Carlee Coppens studied psychology at the universities of Aix-en-Provence and Montreal. A certain number of his works have already been published in Canada, including a collection of 60 poems ...
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1998
Mathieu Terence scribbled down his first works at the age of 11 or 12, a time when he constantly sought refuge in reading to forget the cruelty of the surrounding world...
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1997
With a carefully adjusted cap on his unkempt hair, wearing a green sweater the same colour as his eyes, with the shirttails protruding from his jeans, a nonchalant gait, a backpack slung over his shoulder...
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1997
Yann Apperry had a French father and an American mother. After two years of post-secondary studies in the United States, he returned to the University of Paris I to do a master’s degree in philosophy...
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1996
"I'm not an author! Being an author isn't a career. I'm a journalist…but I don't feel like I'm working. Journalism is not a job, it's a luxury." So says Yann Moix, an exuberant man with green, uncompromising eyes. He’s a die-hard – and even he recognizes it, with a hint of self-satisfaction...
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1995
SPECIAL AWARD
"With my passion for literature, I signed up for a master's course to feed my love of Proust…but I gave it up." Eric Laurrent did his studies in Clermont-Ferrand, all the while holding down a series of jobs...
1995
After two years of preparatory work, Agnès started at the ENS, and then passed a competitive exam in English to earn a postgraduate degree in English linguistics. Although the word 'author' seemed foreign to her, Agnès always had a taste for writing, and for the language and art of telling stories...
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1993
Florence Seyvos began her career translating children’s books for Gallimard. In 1989, “without really believing in it myself,” her editor Geneviève Brisac encouraged her to publish her first novel for teenagers, Comme au Cinéma...
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1992 (en)
“I have always felt the need to write”, remembers Marianne Dubertret. Fanny de bulle en bulle, her first novel, was published by Lattès when she was just 14 years old...
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1992 (en)
A graduate in political science and in Russian from the Sorbonne, Frédéric Lenormand travelled widely. His travels awoke in him a desire to write...
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1990 (en)
As a lawyer and writer of the literary column for the French language magazine Public, Alexandre Najjar was already the author of four literary compendium...
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