Abigail Assor’s novel La nuit de David won Prix du roman Version Femina 2025 in Paris, France, on Wednesday, June 11, 2025.
Version Femina is a French weekly magazine supplement which focuses on a range of topics relevant to women, including celebrity news, fashion, beauty, health, and lifestyle. Every month, from January to October, the editorial team at Version Femina offers its readers five novels for its Prix du roman Version Femina (English: Version Femina Novel Prize), and the best of these is chosen by a jury of 150 readers drawn at random and renewed each month. A professional jury, composed of eight journalists and writers, selects the grand prize winner from among the 10 favorites of the year.
The Prix du roman Version Femina 2025 jury is comprised of Emmanuelle Demarest, editorial director of Version Femina, Philippe Claudel, president of the Académie Goncourt, president of the jury for the Prix du roman Version Femina, Irène Frain, Anne Goscinny, Philippe Grimbert, Anne Michelet, editor-in-chief of culture and celebrities at Version Femina, Dominique Bona, of the Académie française, and Clara Arnaud, 2024 laureate.
They announced the 2025 winner to be Abigail Assor’s novel La nuit de David (Gallimard), which tells the sensitive and poetic story of a love between a sister and her extraordinary brother. As an adult, Olive, the narrator, recalls her close relationship with her twin, David, fascinated by trains to the point of wanting to become one to escape. She, a pretty, obedient doll, a perfect replica of “Mother.” He, an inverted double, hyperactive, often violent, a “devil” to his mother. The two shared their rooms, their dreams, and confided in each other. In their world, Olive and David spoke in Barbapapa language, played “fast” so as not to be interrupted, until Night, the summer of their 10th birthday, when everything changed irrevocably.
Abigail Assor received her award from the jury worth €3,000 at the Maison de l’Amérique latine in Paris on Wednesday.
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