Prix Goncourt: Eric Vuillard

Eric Vuillard won the Prix Goncourt for best work of French literature 2017.  Vuillard's book "L'Ordre du jour" looks at the hidden steps that gave rise to the Nazi invasion of Austria in 1938. 

The Prix Goncourt was awarded last week by the 10 members of the Academy Goncourt in Paris to Eric Vuillard for having written the best French-language prose work of the preceding year. While Vuillard takes home a token prize of just €10 (around $12), his book L'Ordre du jour (The Order of the Day) receives the highly coveted Goncourt jacket-band, which leads to explosive book sales and household name fame.

In L'Ordre du jour, Eric Vuillard uses fiction to retrace the behind-the-scenes steps leading to Nazi Germany's invasion of Austria in 1938.  With respect to the relationship between history and fiction, Vuillard has said that, "Literature is intended to tell the stories that are important and even threatening ... There are forms of discovery that are specific to reading and writing. What I call fiction is the editing made by the data collected."

Also announced last week was the Prix Renaudot, which is seen as a second-place award that, while not related to the Prix Goncourt, complements it. Author Olivier Guez received the honor for his work, "La disparition de Joseph Menguele" (The Disappearance of Joseph Menguele).