Nathacha Appanah wins the Gisèle Halimi literary prize for La nuit au coeur

The novelist Nathacha Appanah, already winner of the Femina and the Goncourt des lycéens for Night in the heart (Gallimard), won another prize on Monday March 16, the one created in tribute to the Franco-Tunisian lawyer Gisèle Halimi, who died in 2020.

This prize, worth 3,000 euros, rewards “the author of a work of fiction (novel) published in French and published between January 1 and October 1, 2025” and who must “evoking the strength and courage of women, their fight for freedom”. The jury, chaired by lawyer Samia Maktouf, is notably composed of actress Ariane Ascaride and filmmaker Élie Chouraqui.

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Night at the Heart, by Nathacha Appanah: three powerful women

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Braided story of three voices

Selling 158,000 copies, this novel, also awarded the Renaudot prize for high school students, links the destinies of three women under the influence of jealous, brutal and manipulative men: the author herself, her cousin Emma and Chahinez Daoud, a mother of three young children, burned alive in 2021 in Mérignac (Gironde) by her husband whom she had left. This feminicide had relaunched the debate in France on the treatment by the police and the justice system of women victims of domestic violence.

Feminist activist, Franco-Tunisian politician, Gisèle Halimi devoted her life as a lawyer to defending women’s rights, particularly the right to abortion, paving the way for the Veil law, promulgated in 1975.