The Prix Goncourt des Lycéens 2021 is awarded to Clara Dupont-Monod for her novel “S’adapter” (Éd. Stock).
After two months of assiduous reading of the 14 books in the running for the Prize, from the first selection of the Académie Goncourt, and following digital meetings with the authors, the high school students have chosen to award the 34ᵉ Prix Goncourt des Lycéens to Clara Dupont-Monod for her novel “S’adapter” published by Stock.
The Minister of National Education, Youth and Sports, Jean-Michel Blanquer and the CEO of the Fnac Darty Group, Enrique Martinez warmly congratulate the winner and thank the high school students who engaged fervently in reading the works, exchanged and debated enthusiastically during the deliberations for the award of the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens 2021.
Created in 1988, on the initiative of Fnac and the French Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, with the agreement of the Académie Goncourt, the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens gives nearly 2,000 students the opportunity to read and study works of contemporary literature. This jury is made up of about fifty high school classes (seconde, première, terminale or BTS) of general and professional courses.
The award ceremony will take place at 7:00 pm at the Ministry of National Education, Youth and Sports in Paris.
S’adapter by Clara Dupont-Monod (Éd. Stock)
This is the story of a child with black eyes that float, and escape into the vague, a child always lying down, with soft and rounded cheeks, with translucent legs veined with blue, with a high voice, with curved feet and a hollow palate, an eternal baby, a misfit child who draws an invisible border between his family and the others. This is the story of his place in the Cévennes house where he was born, in the midst of powerful nature and protective mountains; of his place in the siblings and in the disrupted childhoods. That of the eldest, who merges with the child, who, cheek to cheek, attentive and almost Siamese, becomes attached to him, abandons himself to him and loses himself in him. That of the youngest, in whom disgust and anger are implanted, the rejection of the child who sucks the joy of his parents and the energy of the elder. That of the youngest who lives in the shadow of the family ghosts while carrying the rebirth of a present out of memory.
As in a fairy tale, the stones in the courtyard bear witness. As in a fairy tale, the strength comes from the children, from the crazy love of the eldest who protects, from the rebellious youngest who will reject the sorrow to save the family adrift. The last one who will know how to reconcile the stories.
The birth of a disabled child told by his siblings. A magnificent and luminous book.