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Edmond de Goncourt, a successful author, critic, and publisher, bequeathed his entire estate for the foundation and maintenance of the académie Goncourt. In honour of his brother and collaborator, Jules Alfred Huot de Goncourt (1830–1870), the académie has awarded the Prix Goncourt every December since 1903. The jury that determines the winner meets at the Drouant restaurant to make its decision. The award, though nominal, ensures the winner celebrity status and a boost in sales. Notable winners of the prize include Marcel Proust, Jean Fayard, Simone de Beauvoir, Georges Duhamel, Alphonse de Châteaubriant, and Antonine Maillet.
In 1987, the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens was established, as a collaboration between the académie Goncourt, the French Ministry of Education, and Fnac, a book, music, and movie retailer.
The Prix Renaudot is announced at the same ceremony as the Prix Goncourt. It has become something of a second-place prize.
Read more about this topic: Prix Goncourt
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“Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
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