The Goncourt was awarded on Monday, November 4, to the Franco-Algerian novelist Kamel Daoud for his novel. hourspublished by Gallimard, dedicated to the “black decade” in Algeria, while Gaël Faye, the other big favorite for Goncourt, won the Renaudot prize for his second novel, Jacaranda (Grasset), about the reconstruction of Rwanda after the 1994 genocide.
The catalytic effect on sales of the famous red banners of literary awards needs no further proof. According to the European research institute GfK, between 2019 and 2023, the Prix Goncourt sold an average of 577,000 copies in France in the year the prize was awarded. The total of the ten best-selling Goncourts of the last fifteen years represents 5.7 million books bought. In 2023, for example, it was Jean-Baptiste Andrea who achieved the best sales result with Look at her (The Iconoclast) among all award-winning books of the year, with over 627,000 copies sold.
For Goncourt, the scale of sales has seen exceptional years. today forgotten Maheux’s falconby Jean Carrière (Goncourt 1972), had reached almost 2 million copies in sales, thus rounding off the fortune of the author – but also of his publisher, Jean-Jacques Pauvert. In 1984, The loverby Marguerite Duras, published by Editions de Minuit, had reached the 1.6 million sales mark. In 2020, Hervé Le Tellier, published by Gallimard, also surpassed one million copies with The anomaly. However, even Goncourt is no guarantee of success: the collection of aphorisms Wandering Shadows (Grasset), by Pascal Quignard, winner of the 2002 Prix Goncourt, peaked at 100,000 copies.
One of the most influential, but not the best equipped
Also according to GfK, Renaudot’s sales reached an average of 211,000 units between 2019 and 2023; those of Femina over 157,000 copies; those of the Grand Prix du Roman, awarded by the French Academy, 145,000 copies, and those of the Doctors 37,000 copies. Depending on the contract signed with his publisher, the author recovers between 8% and 12%, rarely more, of the price of each work sold. Sometimes the ripple effect starts when the author is a multi-award winner. This is how sad tiger (POLE), Snow Sinnowinner of the Femina, won at least six more awards in France in 2023, so much so that sales of this bittersweet novel have now reached more than 278,000 copies.
You still have 27.01% of this article to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
