Acclaimed by critics, Maria Pourchet is now crowned with the Prix de Flore. The author of Western, (Stock), has just won the prestigious award with six votes, against four for Eva Ionesco and one for François Bégaudeau, this Wednesday, November 8. She succeeds Joffrine Donnadieu, for Chienne et Louve, (Gallimard).
“It’s a novel that goes against the grain, in that it defends a Don Juan,” argues Bertrand de Saint-Vincent, juror for the prize. Which today is not really in tune with the times. She shows a certain audacity. This prize crowns a novelist about whom we talk a lot every fall, but who until now had never received a prize. Let’s hope that the flower will bloom.”
In the August 31 issue of Le Figaro littéraire, academician Patrick Grainville wrote: “After the famous Feu, by Maria Pourchet, here is Western! It’s larger. A western would mean going alone, towards the west: “A disproportionate, unsatisfied quest, which only discovers what it seeks, love and tranquility, on the verge of madness”. And the chasms will open up in front of two characters, Aurore and Alexis. Aurore goes to live in Quercy, in the house of her deceased mother. She leaves, with her son, a frustrating job for teleworking in the countryside. She breaks up with a rudimentary lover, portrait with an axe. She remembers the brutality of her deflowering by an expeditious teenager to the point of rape. She leaves the city, society, all systems, the masks of all discourse. It’s a cut-off style, very inventive minimalism. The main thing is said: a writer.”
With this prize, Maria Pourchet won a check for €6,150 and the right to consume Pouilly-Fumé every day for one year in a glass engraved with her name. She joins a prestigious list which includes: Aurélien Bellanger, Abel Quentin, Monica Sabolo, Amélie Nothomb, Tristan Garcia, Virginie Despentes, Michel Houellebecq…
The jury is composed of Frédéric Beigbeder, Jacques Braunstein, Manuel Carcassonne (did not take part in the vote), Carole Chrétiennot, Michèle Fitoussi, François Reynaert, Jean-Pierre Saccani, Bertrand de Saint-Vincent, Christophe Tison, Philippe Vandel, Jean-René van der Plaetsen and Arnaud Viviant.