Calling All French Literature Connoisseurs! Albertine Prize 2020
The Albertine Prize aims to highlight the best in contemporary French literature that has been translated into English and published in the United States during 2019. This year’s finalists include Goncourt Prize winners and finalists, an art historian, a filmmaker, a journalist, and a poet.
From now until November 25, readers all over the world will be able to vote on Albertine.com for their favorite book among the selected titles.
Animalia by Jean-Baptiste del Amo, translated by Frank Wynne
A prize-winning and word-of-mouth literary sensation in France, Animalia is an extraordinary epic that retraces the history of a modest French peasant family over the twentieth century as they develop their small plot of land into an industrial pig farm. A visceral, bleak tale of man and beast.
This is del Amo’s fourth novel and the first to be translated into English. He won the Goncourt First Novel Prize in 2008 for Une éducation libertine.
Hold Fast Your Crown by Yannick Haenel, translated by Teresa Fagan
This witty, complex novel bridges the divide between cinema and literature in unexpected ways that are at once gratifying and profound. An exasperated writer obsessed with American cinema embarks on an increasingly bizarre journey to find a director who will produce his masterpiece about Herman Melville.
Yannick Haenel is a columnist and the author of several novels and essays, as well as the editor of the avant-garde magazine Ligne de risque, which he co-founded in 1997.
Kannjawou: A Novel of Haiti by Lyonel Trouillot, translated by Gretchen Schmid
Kannjawou (pronounced Konn-yeh-woo) is the Haitian Creole expression for a wild celebration, a fandango. Set in Haiti's capital Port-Au-Prince in the early 2000s, this novel embodies the nation's indomitable spirit through a journal kept by a deeply observant young male college student, depicting a country entering a new era after years of oppression, corruption, and most recently, the shambles left in the wake of foreign occupation.
Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Lyonel Trouillot spent his teenage years in the US, before returning home to join the fight against the dictatorship. He is the author of 11 novels, two essays and a book of poetry.
“Muslim”: A Novel by Zahia Rahmani, translated Matthew Reeck
In this genre-bending novel, the narrator contemplates the loss of her native language and her imprisonment and exile for being Muslim, woven together in an exploration of the political and personal relationship of language within the fraught history of Islam. Drawing inspiration from the oral histories of her native Berber language, the Koran, and French children’s tales, Rahmani combines fiction and lyric essay to tell an important story, both powerful and visionary, of identity, persecution, and violence.
The Algerian-born academic and author Zahia Rahmani is one of France’s leading art historians and writers of fiction, memoirs, and cultural criticism.
Vernon Subutex 1by Virginie Despentes, translated by Frank Wynne
A European bestseller about drugs, sex, and punk rock. It follows the experiences of an infamous music shop proprietor who is rendered homeless by the digital era before rumors of his invaluable collection of music VHS tapes make him an unwitting target.
Virginie Despentes is a feminist writer, filmmaker, and provocateur.
Be sure to jump over to albertine.com to vote for your favorite title!
Summaries provided via NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources. Click through to each book’s title for more.