Ananda Devi’s novel Sylvia P was named the winner in her category at the Grand Prix de l’Héroïne Madame Figaro 2023 on Thursday, June 15, 2023.
Grand Prix de l’Héroïne Madame Figaro is a French literary prize that celebrates new heroines in French and foreign literature handed out annually by the magazine Madame Figaro. Three books featuring female heroes are crowned each year since 2004: a French novel, a foreign novel, and a biography. Some of the previous winners have been Leïla Slimani, Marie Ndiaye, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Hédi Kaddour.
The winners of the awards, selected by journalists from the editorial staff of Le Figaro and Madame Figaro were revealed on Thursday. The winner in the foreign category is Ananda Devi’s novel Sylvia P published by Editions Bruno Doucey. Devi is a Mauritian writer who writes primarily in French starting with the short story collection Solstices (1977). Her book Sylvia P comes with the following blurb;
“At the end of the corridor, a young woman walks as if she were dancing, still under the effect of the sleeping pills she has swallowed, she walks unbalanced on her own life, she does not realize that she is not holding on the slender straight line that she has drawn for herself, she goes forward all the same, she goes forward while dancing on her stones, on her pebbles, on her rocks, her heart cut, her mouth puffy, the shadow dislocated, she goes forward all the same with her nose flushed with tears, her hips swaying, her eyes drowned, a bottle of coke in her hand, not knowing what to do with it until a nurse came to take it away from her for fear that she might breaks, let another nurse take her to bed lest she break”.
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