Haitian Writer Makenzy Orcel Wins Goncourt Prize in its American Version for A Human Sum

The Haitian writer Makenzy Orcel received on Saturday evening in New York, from the hands of the French author Anne Berest, the Goncourt prize in its American version for A Human Sum, a reward awarded by French-speaking students from universities in the United States.

The most prestigious of the French literary prizes has become international with “Goncourt prize selections” in 35 countries between students of French and Francophone literature.

For its second edition in the United States, the Goncourt Academy unveiled the “Goncourt United States Choice” during a ceremony in Manhattan, at the Villa Albertine of the French Embassy, ​​chaired by Anne Berest, laureate in 2022 and surrounded by students from eight universities (Columbia, Duke, Harvard, MIT, New York University, Princeton, University of Virginia and Yale).

These young bilinguals – women mostly American, French and of other nationalities – studied for months in French six books from the Goncourt 2022 selection won in November by the Frenchwoman Brigitte Giraud with Vivre vite (Flammarion).

The jury of these young literary academics therefore awarded his Goncourt in an American version to Une Somme Humaine (Rivages) by the Haitian novelist and poet Makenzy Orcel, which speaks from beyond the grave on 600 pages, in an abundant and uninterrupted language, a woman inhabited by poetry and violence.

They had to eliminate in particular the very personal Vivre vite by Brigitte Giraud and the historical and political stories Le Mage du Kremlin (Gallimard) by

the Italian-Swiss Giuliano da Empoli and Les Presque sœurs (Seuil) by Cloé Korman.

When Anne Berest announced the prize, Makenzy Orcel made a surprise and highly acclaimed appearance at the Villa Albertine.

“I don’t write for awards, not for recognition, I write because it matters; because literature is an invitation to look at the world differently, to approach it differently, to show the foundations of the world”, launched the writer born in 1983 in Port-au-Prince, already rewarded in France and whose first novel Les Immortelles in 2012 was noticed for the profusion of its writing.

The “unanimous” student jury praised “such delicious and poetic prose (…) a magnificent literary work (…) pure fiction that speaks of universalism” and compared them to the works of the Americans William Faulkner and Toni Morrison.

“It shows that fiction can be the best way to touch the truth,” said Arielle Stern, of Duke University in North Carolina.

For her part, Anne Berest, whose family novel on the Shoah The Postcard was translated in the United States in May (The Postcard Europa Editions) said she was “convinced that literature is a gateway to understanding the history “.

Source: AFP