The Ouest-France Étonnants Voyageurs prize was awarded on Sunday in Saint-Malo, Brittany, to the Bosnian author Velibor Colic for his novel War and Rain (Gallimard) evoking his experience as a soldier during the Bosnia-Herzegovina War.
“32 years ago, I arrived as a refugee, a faceless man, at Rennes station,” the writer remembered when receiving the prize. “At that time, I was illiterate. In French, I knew three words: Jean-Paul Sartre. And I measure all this progress between the faceless man, the illiterate man and this homage paid to me by youth,” he said. The Ouest-France Étonnants Voyageurs prize, with a reward of 2,000 euros, is awarded each year by a jury of ten young readers aged 15 to 20 selected on a cover letter, after a first selection by an adult jury.
Aged 59, Velibor Colic evokes in his book the fratricidal war and “the trenches that were dug like graves”. Soldier, then deserter and prisoner, he then left Bosnia for a life of exile, notably in France where he published his first novels. His book was also awarded the Joseph Kessel prize, financed to the tune of 5,000 euros by the Civil Society of Multimedia Authors (Scam).
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In addition to the traditional signing sessions, the festival offers workshops, coffees and lunches in the company of authors and filmmakers, but also three other prizes honoring writers and poets. The Nicolas Bouvier prize, in tribute to the Swiss writer, photographer and traveler, was awarded to the Italian writer Giosuè Calaciura for Pantelleria (Black on White), which evokes the destiny of an Italian island, southwest of Sicily, “condemned to be a border while refusing to separate men”. The “Sea People” prize, which recognizes a work of maritime literature, was awarded to the historian Yan Lespoux, for his first novel To die, the world (Agullo), retracing a disastrous shipwreck of a Portuguese armada in 1627. The Robert Ganzo Poetry Prize, named after the Venezuelan poet, was awarded to the poet Éric Sarner for all of his work. With a grant of 10,000 euros, it is one of the best-endowed poetry prizes in France.
The guest of honor of this edition is the Nobel Prize for Literature Olga Tokarczuk. The festival hopes to celebrate “the formidable powers of creation and imagination” against “wars and the dehumanization of others,” said its president, Jean-Michel Le Boulanger, hoping to attract some 40,000 people “like in previous years “. The Étonnants Voyageurs festival brings together some 190 guests from 43 countries from Saturday to Monday, with 250 meetings and six exhibitions.