2023-06-10 20:00:00
The 2023 Book Fair will not take place in Chaumont. Despite everything, the twelfth edition of the prize which traditionally accompanies it, unveiled this Friday, June 9, crowned Oscar Lalo for his novel entitled “Le Salon”, precisely. Three other works, all of high quality, were also in the running for this prize, which has a reputation for discovering talent.
The Chaumont Book Fair prize was born in 2011, when the event was already ten years old. Joël Moris, then director of the Silos media library, launched the idea of a Salon prize which would be awarded each time on the day of the inauguration.
A working group was formed, which founded an association and then brought together a jury made up of fourteen Chaumont residents led by an author who changed each year. The writer Marianne Alphant gave the group the benefit of her invaluable experience by advising it on the choice of novels and writers to solicit for the presidency. Finally, the subsidies obtained from the municipality and from Crédit Mutuel, the operation’s main financial partner, made it possible to award a prize worth €1,000 each year to the winner, then to open a prize for high school students in 2017.
The chosen theme has not changed in twelve years. French-language fiction published during the year and whose plot must relate to an artistic field are selected: theatre, cinema, music, painting, architecture, literature, etc.
Writing and literature are in the spotlight again this year, since Oscar Lalo, in “Le Salon”, tells us about a novel that awakens a man to life. The jury is careful not to give precedence to authors who are already highly publicized, so much so that the Chaumont Book Fair prize quickly earned the reputation of being a talent scout.
The members of the jury thus live to the rhythm of this fabulous literary adventure which brings them into contact with people who are passionate about books and meet talented writers. These last few years have been more difficult to get through: a murderous and tenacious virus, the departure of Sylvie Thorel and Paule Daniel, the shedding of the Salon du Livre for two years with the modernization work of the media library… Christine Guillemy wrote in the word of the mayor who introduced the program of the 2021 show: “I look forward to the prospect of organizing the next edition of the Chaumont Book Fair in a transfigured place”. The work is nearing completion. So, will this Show, which is a real showcase for this award, take place in 2024? We really hope so…
In the meantime, in the absence of the 2023 Book Fair (Le JHM of January 20, 2023), the prize and the check for €1,000 that accompanies it will be officially presented to Oscar Lalo on October 6, during a small party open to all. at 6 p.m., in the auditorium of the Espace Bouchardon.
From our correspondent Françoise Ramillon
Oscar Lalo crowned for his novel entitled “Le Salon”
Winner of this 12th prize at the Chaumont Book Fair, Oscar Lalo lives in Geneva. Lawyer, law professor, actor, screenwriter and musician, he has also recently become a novelist. His work “La race des orphelins” won the second novel prize and the Filigranes honorary prize. As for the third, it is “Le Salon” that the jury for the Chaumont Book Fair prize has just chosen from among the four finalists on its list.
“Le Salon”, presented in the JHM of January 15, is a tender and fluid novel which demonstrates how the frequentation of great authors can question us and influence our lives and above all pays a beautiful tribute to booksellers. “these smugglers, says the author, who exercise the most beautiful job in the world: that of awakening to literature”.
The immature 39-year-old man, narrator of this original story, spends his idle days in front of screens, watching series. That day, however, he had to go out to go to a hairdresser. On his way: a bin full of books at 1 €! To fill the waiting time at the hairdresser, he randomly buys “La temptation de Saint-Antoine” by an author whose name he barely knows, Flaubert. The gruff bookseller he addresses is a lonely man, entrenched behind his books. At Fabrice’s, the hairstylist and visagiste asks him for a tidy sum that he cannot pay. Taken by a sudden inspiration, he proposes to pay his debt: “Why not make your hair salon a literary salon? I am a Flaubert specialist! » The hairdresser, surprised and interested, takes him at his word and this is the beginning of an adventure that brings together our three characters: the narrator forced to leave his apartment and his series, the learned bookseller who will introduce him to literature, introducing him to Flaubert, helping him to prepare his interventions and the hairdresser seduced by the learning of belles lettres.
Oscar Lalo, after two serious novels, chose to write a smiling story which he says“She gave him joy.”
“Le Salon” by Oscar Lalo was published by Plon.
“Clara reads Proust” by Stéphane Carlier. A novel about love and the conception of love according to Proust, an ode to the power of words and the happiness that reading can bring: “Clara lit Proust” by Stéphane Carlier has appeared in the Blanche collection of Gallimard editions.
At “Cindy coiffure”, in Chalons-sur-Saône, a young hairdresser, Clara discovers one day, forgotten in an armchair, a book entitled: “A la recherche du temps perdu” by Marcel Proust. She opens it…
At first disoriented, she persists and clings; And soon it becomes addictive, she devotes all her free time to it, sees the world through the eyes of Proust making connections between the characters of the novel and her colleagues whom she describes with earthiness and tenderness, mixing personal memories and literary memories. Proust transformed his life!
A bookish encounter full of humor and sweetness that makes us want to abandon the book we love best on a hairdresser’s chair.
Sarah anyway, by Régine Détambel. This is a very fictionalized biography of a few years of the life of Sarah Bernhardt, “La Divine”, in “Sarah nevertheless” by Régine Détambel, published by Actes Sud
Sarah Bernhardt is 70 years old. Affected by bone tuberculosis, she has just had her leg amputated, but, courageously, she wants to continue to direct her theater, and above all to play all possible roles, male or female. Adulated, very surrounded, she leads a luxurious lifestyle and hits the headlines with her love affairs.
Suzan, his secretary, companion, confidante and scapegoat… tells us about this hectic life, its excesses of all kinds, its courage, its prowess, its passions, its anger, its wickedness. Under her influence, Suzan venerates her, protects her while being jealous of her.
A very well written novel, easy to read, which allows us to approach the Parisian artistic milieu between the two wars.
“Our dear old lady author”, by Anne Serre. It’s a tribute to literary creation in “Our so dear old lady author”, published by Mercure de France. Anne Serre leads a virtuoso writing exercise, mixing reality and imagination, having fun surprising the reader with a network of crossed fictions where he must accept to lose his footing at the beginning.
Several stories are indeed entangled in that of the bedridden writer, nearing her end, affectionately nicknamed “our dear old lady author” and who did not manage to finish the novel on which she was working. Then comes a team made up of a cameraman, an assistant and a director who want to help him fill in the gaps in the narration and shoot a documentary. To their conversation, to the details that the old lady delivers, are added the stories of secondary speakers, fictional characters who appear there by magic and feed the plot of the novel in the making.
Anne Serre says she wanted “disassemble the mechanism of a novel” which is always building “with bits of oneself” that we tie up and make a fabric that tells a story”.
List of prizes awarded by the Chaumont Book Fair
2012 – “The Heron of Guernica” – Antoine Choplin – La Brune.
2013 – “Beekeeping according to Beckett” – Martine PAge – L’Olivier.
2014 – “Black art” – Bruno Tessarech – Buchet-Chastel 2015 – “The national writer” – Serge Joncour – Flammarion.
2016 – “The shells were playing pigeon flies” – Raphaël Jerusalmy – Bruno Doucey.
2017 – “Silent” – Michèle Gazier – Seuil.
2018 – “Lunch of the barricades” – Pauline Dreyfus – Grasset.
2019 – “Harry and Franz” – Alexandre Najjar – Plon.
2020 – “Malakoff” – Gregory Buchert – Verticales.
2021 – “Art Nouveau” – Paul Greveillac – Gallimard.
2022 – “With Bas Jan Ader” – Thomas Giraud – La Contre Allée.
In September, the jury for the Chaumont Book Fair Prize will open up to other people who would like to take part. Interested persons can express their intention and motivation now at the email address: [email protected]
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