The Ouest-France Étonnants Voyageurs prize was awarded on Sunday in Saint-Malo to Marie Charrel, novelist and journalist, for Les Mangeurs de nuit (The Observatory), a novel in which a daughter of Japanese immigrants meets a hermit who watches over a forest in Canada.
In her seventh novel Marie Charrel, 40, born in Annecy tells the story of Hannah, a “nisei” (daughter of Japanese immigrants) and her meeting in British Columbia with Jack, a man watching over the forest and who has taken refuge in native legends since her brother left for the war, says the publisher’s sheet. Marie Charrel’s novel has already received the 2023 France Bleu-Page Book Prize from booksellers, and the Caze Prize from Brasserie Lipp.
“The initial idea is to talk about forests, in one way or another. The meeting takes place just after the Second World War and goes back Hannah’s story to her story in Japan, ”explained Marie Charrel joined by AFP. This novel “touches on questions of identity, immigration”, recalls the novelist. In North America “there was this labor immigration to Canada with first the men, the women who followed them.” “There is this desire to talk about elsewhere, about these stories that take place on other continents but which speak to us, about immigration, rejection of the other, to talk about the living, forests and this nature that we are in the process of destroying and which is something beautiful”, emphasizes Marie Charrel.
The Ouest-France Étonnants Voyageurs prize, endowed with 2,000 euros, is awarded each year by a jury of ten young readers aged 15 to 20, after an initial selection by an adult jury. The “Seafarers” prize, awarded to the author of a recent book with a maritime character, was awarded to Julian Sancton for Nightmare in Antarctica (Payot). The Nicolas-Bouvier prize, in homage to the deceased travel writer, who accompanied the Étonnants Voyageurs festival in its early years, goes to François-Henri Désérable for L’Usure d’un monde (Gallimard). The author recounts his “40-day journey in Iran, at the height of the uprising” against the regime.
The Joseph-Kessel prize was awarded to Sibylle Grimbert, Le Dernier des siens (Anne Carrière). Created in 1990, the Étonnants Voyageurs literature and film festival attracts up to 60,000 visitors each year and this year welcomes 150 guests from 30 countries, according to the organizers. This 33rd edition will end on Monday.