The French Literary Awards for 1963

The last three months of each year are some of the busiest in French literary life. During these three months, French publishers compete to publish new books, mainly novels, which participate in the great competition for the Goncourt, Théophraste Re-Nodo, Femina, Enteralie, Medici prizes... This revival of the literary market causes considerable concern to literary critics in the pages of the authoritative Parisian newspapers and weeklies such as Le Monde, Le Figaro Literaire, Le Nouvelle Literaire, Le Lettre Française, Carrefour, and Express. Often, the pages of these newspapers carry out that "triage" that greatly facilitates the final decisions of the numerous juries called upon to determine the lucky laureates from among the large number of candidates. Of course, sometimes factors that are more interested in the material side also influence the selection of laureates - these are the publishers, who have their own connections in the composition of the committees themselves. Naturally, this is no secret. The competition in this regard is great, the tension is strong. Because - what does it mean for an author, for his novel and therefore for his publisher to be awarded the Goncourt Prize, the monetary value of which is only five thousand old French francs or today's fifty... This means a dizzying rise in the barometer of circulation: from the initial five thousand copies, the "awarded" book begins to be published in successive editions of a thousand copies each, to reach a circulation of over one hundred, two hundred and often three hundred thousand copies. Would Françoise Sagan - despite the advertising of her publisher Julier - have reached half a million copies or even more if she had not received the critics' prize and if - this is also of great importance in France - the laudatory words of Françoise Mauriac and the late eminent literary critic Robert Kemp had not appeared in print for her first book, "Good afternoon, sadness"! Indeed, Françoise Sagan was a rare exception in terms of the circulation of her books, since not only her award-winning novel marked a record number in sales (810 thousand), but also her subsequent books: "A Famous Smile" and "In a Month, in a Year" marked impressive figures in their circulation: the first 500 thousand, the second 400 thousand.