Prizes (les prix littéraires) play a large part (some would say too large) in modern French literary life. Their history goes back to the Middle Ages, when there were many literary competitions, usually for poetry, the most famous and long-lived being the Jeux Floraux de Toulouse. From early on the Académie Française offered prizes for poetry and eloquence, as did the provincial academies. The 20th c. has seen a vast increase in their number; some are offered by public bodies, some by commercial organizations, others by private associations, and they cover writing of all kinds.
The ‘big six’, all given to novels, are the Goncourt (the most coveted prize, awarded by the Académie Goncourt), the Femina (with an all-woman jury), the Grand Prix du Roman of the Académie Française, the Renaudot, the Interallié, and the Médicis (particularly associated with ‘modernity’). Considerable prestige is attached to the Prix des Libraires, and there are many other prizes offered for particular kinds of writing (poetry, detective fiction, bande dessinée, etc.). The top prizes may not guarantee lasting success, but provide a considerable commercial boost—the Goncourt often leads to sales in excess of 100, 000. They are naturally subject to rumours of intrigue and fixing (and were vigorously attacked by Gracq in La Littérature à l'estomac), but are rarely refused.
A considerable number of prizes are available for francophone writing outside France. These include the Noma awards, the Grand Prix de la Francophonie of the Académie Française, and the Grand Prix Littéraire d'Afrique Noire.
The Nobel Prize for literature has been awarded to the following French-speaking writers: Sully-Prudhomme (1901), Mistral (1904), Maeterlinck (1911), Romain Rolland (1915), Anatole France (1921), Bergson (1927), Martin du Gard (1937), Gide (1947), Mauriac (1952), Camus (1957),
[Peter France]
