Within the Republic of Letters, everyone knows the Cino Del Duca world prize which is awarded by the Simone-et-Cino-Del-Duca Foundation and the Institut de France. It is a prize which is not awarded to a book but to an entire work. His track record speaks for itself. Figures such as Jean Anouilh, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Jorge Luis Borges, Milan Kundera, Patrick Modiano (also Nobel Prize for Literature and Goncourt Prize) were distinguished. And in recent years: Kamel Daoud (in 2019), Joyce Carol Oates (2020), Maryse Condé (2021) and Haruki Murakami (2022). Last year, the award was given to Duong Thu Huong, a Vietnamese novelist and political dissident.
And for the 2024 edition? The information fell this afternoon of May 16: it was the playwright and novelist Yasmina Reza who was crowned. The press release states that, on the proposal of the jury chaired by Amin Maalouf, Permanent Secretary of the French Academy, the Committee of the Del-Duca Foundation, chaired by Xavier Darcos, Chancellor of the Institut de France, awarded the 2024 World Prize , endowed with €200,000, to Yasmina Reza, “paying tribute to a great author whose exceptional work and personality carry the message of modern humanism recognized by the World Prize”.
His endowment is also remarkable: it places him just behind the Nobel Prize for Literature (around 900,000 euros). The name of this prize is also a way of paying tribute to a great press and publishing man, Cino del Duca (1899-1967). Italian, he joined and adopted France at the age of 33, he did a lot for his adopted country. When he died, his wife Simone took up the torch of a rare philanthropy which supported literature and science. She had been active until 2004, the year of her death at the age of 91. With this generous reward, both continue to work.
A prestigious jury selected the lucky winner: the Del Duca Foundation Committee is made up of the permanent secretaries of five academies and qualified external personalities: Dominique Reynié, Anne Levade, Patrick Gérard and Pierre de Bizemont.
Amin Maalouf was keen to emphasize that “Yasmina Reza has built, over the last forty years, an extensive, coherent and varied literary work. Each novel, each short story, each story, each scenario, reveals his talent, his audacity, his inventiveness. » And added: “It is obviously in the theater that his contribution has been most significant. She is today one of the most performed and most translated contemporary authors around the world. »