Prince Pierre of Monaco Foundation - 2020 Prizewinners

H.R.H. the Princess of Hanover and her daughter Charlotte Casiraghi, surrounded by Mathieu Palain and Christian Bobin (left) and Salomé Berlemont-Gilles (right) © Government Communication Department / Manuel Vitali

The winners of the 2020 awards were announced at the Prince Pierre of Monaco Foundation prize ceremony this evening. The ceremony was held at Monaco’s Opera Garnier and presented by Arnaud Merlin, writer, journalist and producer for France Musique.

2020 Prizewinners:

- Literary Prize

- Discovery Grant

- High School Pupils’ Favourite Choice

- Principality Prize, awarded jointly with Philosophical Encounters of Monaco

Established in 1951, the Literary Prize honours a well-known writer in the French language for their entire body of work. The shortlist of authors selected for the Prince Pierre Foundation’s Literary Prize 2020 is as follows:

-          Metin Arditi          

-          Élisabeth Barillé

-          Christian Bobin  

-          Etienne De Montety

-          Pierre Michon

The Literary Prize was awarded to Christian Bobin.

Established in 2001 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Literary Prize, the Discovery Grant is awarded each year to recognise an author in the French language whose first work of fiction has just been published. The authors shortlisted for the Discovery Grant 2020 are as follows:

-          Salomé Berlemont-Gilles for Le Premier qui tombera (The First to Fall), Éditions Grasset

-          Maylis Besserie for Le Tiers temps (The Tiers Temps), Éditions Gallimard

-          Victoria Mas for Le Bal des folles (The Lunatics’ Ball), Éditions Albin Michel

-          Anne Pauly for Avant que j’oublie (Before I Forget), Éditions Verdier

-          Philippe Ridet pour Ce crime est à moi (This Is My Crime), Éditions des Équateurs

The winner of the Discovery Grant is Salomé Berlemont-Gilles.

Established in 2007 in collaboration with the Department of Education, Youth and Sport, the High School Pupils’ Favourite Choice prize is awarded by a jury of pupils in the Principality, who make their decision from a selection of first novels. The following authors were shortlisted for the High School Pupils’ Favourite Choice award in 2020:

-          Olivier Dorchamps for Ceux que je suis (Those That I Am), Éditions Finitude

-          Alexandra Koszelyk for A crier dans les ruines (To Shout in the Ruins), Éditions Aux forges de Vulcain

-          Victoria Mas for Le bal des folles (The Lunatics’ Ball), Éditions Albin Michel

-          Mathieu Palain for Sale gosse (Little Brat), Éditions Iconoclaste

-          Constance Rivière for Une fille sans histoire (A Girl Without a Story), Éditions Stock

The winner of the High School Pupils’ Favourite Choice Award is Mathieu Palain.

The Principality Prize, which was established in2017 and is jointly presented with Philosophical Encounters of Monaco, is awarded to an author for their entire body of philosophical work.The prize honours a life of philosophical writing, an outstanding body of work which has opened up new paths in the field of philosophy and introduced alternative approaches in science, politics, theology, history, anthropology, ethics or psychoanalysis.

The winner of the Principality Prize is Hélène Cixous.

It should be noted that the award of the Young Music Fans’ Favourite Choice and Musical Contest prizes, which are traditionally presented in the two years preceding the Musical Composition Prize, has been postponed to 2021.

The Prince Pierre Foundation also paid tribute to two authors and members of the Literary Council who passed away this year: Jacques de Decker, Honorary Permanent Secretary of the Royal Academy of French Language and Literature of Belgium, and Jean-Loup Dabadie, a member of the Académie Française.

The latest news from the Prince Pierre Foundation is available from: www.fondationprincepierre.mc

Tel: + 377 98 98 85 15