Diadié Dembélé and Akli Tadjer are Prix du Livre Européen et Méditerranéen 2024 finalists; the announcement was made on Sunday, December 15, 2024.
Prix du Livre Européen et Méditerranéen is a literary prize that rewards a European or Mediterranean book and helps to bring together the cultures of the two shores of the Mediterranean. Founded in 2013, it has been won by Yahia Belaskri and Leïla Bahsaïn, among others.
The 2024 jury has Philippe Sands (France) as President alongside Charles Jaigu (France), Alexia Kefalas (Greece), Anaïs Ginori (Italy), Beatrice Delvaux (Belgium), Pierre Haski (France), Alex Vicente (Spain), Alain Beuve-Méry (France), Francois Clemenceau (France), Ylva Nilsson (Sweden), Ana Navarro Pedro (Portugal), Stefan de Vries (The Netherlands), Michaela Wiegel (Germany), Jakob Hanke (Germany), Gauthier Rybinski (France), Christophe Ono-dit-Biot (France), Joan Condijts (Belgium), and Helena Petäistö (Finland). The jury announced the following finalists on Sunday;
- Deux Grands Hommes et Demi, Diadié Dembélé (Editions JC Lattes)
- De Ruines et de Gloire – Akli Tadjer (Editions Les Escales)
Here are blurbs of the two titles;
Deux Grands Hommes et Demi, Diadié Dembélé (Editions JC Lattes)
From Bamako to Paris, two friends, Manthia and Toko, experience the road to exile in very different ways. They come from the same village in Mali. In their twenties, faced with a fruitless harvest, they have no choice but to go to the capital, Bamako. But in 1991, political and social unrest forces them to leave again. To France this time. It is Manthia who tells their stories from an administrative detention center. He confides in his lawyer through a translator in the hope of obtaining papers. The translator often interrupts him. Is he looking for the right word or forcing him to say something else? Diadié Dembélé tells with force and originality the story of his family between France and Mali, and a profound story of friendship.
De Ruines et de Gloire – Akli Tadjer (Editions Les Escales)
The Algerian War seen through the eyes of a young lawyer forced to defend the “enemy”.
Algeria. March 1962. Despite the ceasefire decreed by de Gaulle, the clashes between supporters of French Algeria and the FLN independence fighters continue. Panic is widespread; suspicion is omnipresent.
Adam El Hachemi Aït Amar, a young lawyer, dreams of putting his skills at the service of free Algeria, but when he is entrusted with…
The winner will be made public at a ceremony at the Maison de l’Europe in Paris on January 24.
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