The novelist-editor was distinguished for her third novel, Hostile Corps published by Grasset. She received her prize Friday May 24 in Trouville.
The first edition of the Flaubert Prize, in 2023, was marked by calamitous weather but a fine winner, Frédéric Pajak. The second, Friday May 24, was radiant for the coronation of the novelist-publisher Stéphanie Polack, author of Hostile bodies (Grasset).
It was in competition with seven other books: Odette Frayard in three waysby Isabelle Monnin (Gallimard); Fantastic love storyby Sophie Divry (Seuil); Under the threatby Vincent Almendros (Éditions de Minuit); Pythonby Nathalie Azoulai, (POL); At workby Éric Laurent, (Flammarion); 9 meetings and a loveby Jérôme Attal, (Fayard) and Indulgencesby Pascale Kramer, (Flammarion).
Read alsoStéphanie Polack: Like a brother
At the entrance to the Flaubert hotel, its two owners, entrepreneurs Pierre-Antoine Capton and Jean-Philippe Cartier, had rolled out the red carpet as in Cannes. The boss of Mediawan, originally from Trouville, said he “very proud of this award. I am committed to defending Trouville-sur-Mer and culture.” For his part, the boss of H8-Collection recalled that the objective of this prize was to “to move culture by highlighting authors”.
The novelists Emilie Frèche and Agathe Ruga, the journalists Isabelle Giordano, Anne Fulda and Bruno Corty, the writer-publisher Guy Birenbaum, the Trouville bookseller Jean-Philippe Pérou and Isabelle Drong, in charge of Culture at the town hall of Trouville supported in his noble task the president of the jury, David Foenkinos. Who took the floor to salute the award-winning novel, Hostile Corps ,« an exceptional book, with such powerful and beautiful writing. »
A meeting that sparks
The winner, who publishes successful novelists like Maria Pourchet and Blandine Rinkel with Stock, did not hide her happiness: “ Being in Trouville, at the Flaubert hotel to receive this prize, it’s not nothing, it makes sense. The first author I met was Flaubert with Madame Bovary. »
The history of Hostile bodies(novel with a sublime title but which is not a nod to the Calm bodies by Jacques Laurent) it is that of Maude, a forty-year-old intellectual who must write the lyrics for the next album by Loïc Quemener, an ex-tax delinquent turned singer, fan of social networks, bodybuilding and serial seducer. Without revealing anything about the plot, we can say that their meeting will spark.
In this book on the confusion of feelings and the sexes, Stéphanie Polack explores masculinity, virility, drawing inspiration from Genet’s hero, Querelle. In his chronicle of Literary Figaro of January 18, Etienne de Montety wrote about Stéphanie Polack: “this little sister of Virginie Despentes, punchier, but also more complex than her elder, portrays a feminist who loves men and who, thanks to an affair with someone who is not even her gender, urges them to ‘to be fully. In the name of women. >
The novelist, who had not published since 2012, received a check for €3,000 from Maison Ruinart and an invitation for a week’s residency at the Flaubert hotel.