History
| French literature |
|---|
| By category |
| French literary history |
|
Medieval |
| French writers |
|
Chronological list |
| Portals |
| France · Literature |
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
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Postmodernism is, almost by definition, a transitional cusp of social, cultural, economic and ideological history when modernism’s high-minded principles and preoccupations have ceased to function, but before they have been replaced with a totally new system of values. It represents a moment of suspension before the batteries are recharged for the new millennium, an acknowledgment that preceding the future is a strange and hybrid interregnum that might be called the last gasp of the past.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)
“In front of these sinister facts, the first lesson of history is the good of evil. Good is a good doctor, but Bad is sometimes a better.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The history of our era is the nauseating and repulsive history of the crucifixion of the procreative body for the glorification of the spirit.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)