The rewards just keep piling up. Already crowned with numerous prizes, including the “Goncourt of animals”, Cédric Sapin-Defour received on Tuesday the trophy for author of the year 2024, awarded by the magazine Livres Hebdo, for His odor after the rain, a book in which he pays a touching tribute to his dog Ubac, who died in 2017.
Of a singular genre, the novel, which is sometimes also presented as an essay, is a true literary phenomenon. Published in spring 2023 by Stock, it quickly rose to the top of the French bestsellers, selling more than 300,000 copies, before achieving international fame: the rights to the work have been sold in more than around ten languages, while projects for adaptation into comics and cinema are discussed.
His smell after the rain remains an intimate work, “a summary of intelligence and love” according to Jean-Paul Dubois, author of a preface, where the underside of a relationship as singular as universal. The pages unfold as a life unfolds, an adventure: that of an encounter between a man and his dog which will last thirteen years. “He looked at me, I looked at him, we said to each other, it’s you, and the earth changed axis,” writes Cédric Sapin-Defour.
What is most touching about the story is the way it opens a new horizon on the world. Its smell after the rain is a side step, a side path that invites us, following Ubac, to marvel at the present moment and its ephemeral beauties. “This dog is teaching me again to read the living things around me, to listen to the music of nature, its amplitudes, its breathing. » Thanks to Cédric Sapin-Defour, we experience another look at nature, gentler, more attentive, less predatory. A way of inhabiting the world more simply, which Christian Bobin called contemplation. He wrote: “Moments of contemplation are moments of great respite for the world, because it is in these moments that reality is no longer afraid of reaching us. »
Livres Hebdo distinguishes each year a French author from a list of best sellers made the previous year, according to GFK data. In 2023, the prize was awarded to Annie Ernaux. Cédric Sapin-Defour joins a serious list of authors including Vanessa Springora and Djaïli Amadou Amal.
For this fifth edition, 15 trophies were awarded in total, from that of the best promotion, to the Glénat editions for their “One Piece night” dedicated to this successful manga, to that of the best “valorization of the fund”, to the editions Denoël for the reissue of the complete works of the poet Blaise Cendrars. The trophy for small publishing house of the year was awarded to Editions Aux forges de Vulcain. Antoine Caro, at Seghers editions, was elected publisher of the year.
A tribute was paid to Robert Birenbaum, who became an author at the age of 97 with his story 16 years, resistance (Stock editions). “I apologize, I am a new writer, almost 98 years old,” he said on stage, to much applause. Please know that I am sad to see the current times. We hear talk of war again, the noises are so insistent. I would like to tell you: be careful. Raise your head.”
The visual adaptation trophy went to the film Le Consentement by Vanessa Filho, from the story of Vanessa Springora, and that of sustainable development to the Swiss publishing house La Baconnière for a printing without harmful waste of an essay by the American Richard J. King on Moby Dick, a compostable book. Gallmeister Editions received the trophy for best production for their new collection of classics, Litera, and the 2024 editions received the trophy for artistic conception for a reissue of a Chinese classic, The Journey to the West (late 16th century). , with all the illustrations produced in Japan between 1806 and 1837.
