A Lithuanian Voice in Paris: Undinė Radzevičiūtė Joins France’s Elite Literary Circle

You can enter this trump list as follows: Mircea Cărtărescu „Theodoros“, Amira Ghenim. „The disaster of the house of notables“, Eduardo Halfon „Tarentule“, Benjamin Labatut „Maniac“, Marci Lodoli „Si peu“, Alia Trabucco Zerán „Propre“, Camila Sosa Villada „Histoire d’une domestication“, Josef Winkler „ “Lechamp”.

The jury for this prize is chaired by Anne F. Garréta and also includes writers Marianne Alphant, Michel Braudeau, Marie Darrieussecq, Patrick Grainville, Dominique Fernandez, Andreï Makine, Pascale Roze and Alain Veinstein. The bonus will be awarded on November 6.

As Vytautas Bikulčius, a literary expert and connoisseur of French book life, told 15min earlier, this is an important assessment: “The Médicis literature prize belongs to the five most prestigious French literary prizes. In terms of importance, it follows the Goncourt, Renaudot and Femina prizes. The Interralié bonus remains behind it”, – 15min he said.

“The Médicis Literary Prize was established by patron Gala Barbisan and writer Jean-Pierre Giraudoux in 1958. for a novel, a short story, a collection of short stories by a young but still little-known writer, which is worth paying attention to, – 15min said V. Bikulčius. – Its monetary value is 1000 euros. At first, it was provided only to French writers, it was abolished in 2005. the Belgian writer of Lithuanian origin J.–P. Toussaint for the novel “Escape”, and in 1970 the Médicis prize, awarded to a foreign writer, was also established. By the way, writers such as U. Eco for “The Name of the Rose”, J. Cortázar for “The Book of Manuel”, M. Kundera for the novel “Life is Elsewhere”, P. Auster for “Leviathan” and others have won it. in 1985 this bonus has also been awarded for essays. I am happy that this year the jury paid attention to U. Radzevičiūtė’s novel “Library of Beauty and Evil”, which was reviewed this year in “Lire” magazine. This publication, dedicated to contemporary literature, does not accept any commissioned articles and in the past year has also annotated A. Šlepik’s “A l’ombre des loups” (“My name is Marytė”) from Lithuanian authors.

U.Radzevičiūtė herself said at the meeting at the Kaunas Literature Week that the French respond very well to her book. She mentioned that previously her translations had received a very strong response in Germany, “but no one reacted to my books in the same way as the French did”.

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