The 44-year-old French novelist, an unfortunate finalist of the French Academy's and Goncourt's Grand Prix novel wins the Interallié Prize with his book "L'hiver du discontentement", in relation to the winter of 1978-1979, when strikes paralyzed the United Kingdom.
Unhappy finalist of the Grand Prix of the French Academy and Goncourt's novel, Thomas B. Reverdy won Wednesday the Interallié Prize for "The Winter of Discontent" (Flammarion), a thrilling and captivating novel about Margaret's rise to power Thatcher. "The winter of discontent" is how the British daily The Sun called the 1978-1979 winter in the UK as strikes paralyzed the country. "Here comes the winter of our discontent" , these are also the first words that Richard III pronounces in the eponymous play by Shakespeare.
Richard III, king thirsty for power, is precisely the role that the young Candice, actress in an exclusively female troupe, must play. To earn a living, Candice works as a bicycle courier in a disorderly London. At the theater, she will meet the still unknown Margaret Thatcher come to take diction classes.
The chilling words of Margaret Thatcher at the end of the book
Thomas B. Reverdy, 44, divided his book into short chapters each with a title from those years. This soundtrack (featuring the Clash, Marianne Faithfull, David Bowie and of course the Sex Pistols) gives the melancholy novel a rhythm that brings us back to the heart of the late 1970s in a bankrupt London. overgrown with detritus.
It is a world on a tipping point aptly evoked by Thomas B. Reverdy. "Mass unemployment is appearing. The work will never be light again, " writes the novelist. Beside Candice, Thomas B. Reverdy created Jones, male character more erased than that of the young woman. A quadragenarian, a disillusioned unemployed man, Jones understood before all the world that he will be part of the camp of the vanquished in the ruthless world to come.
The book ends with the chilling words of Margaret Thatcher become Prime Minister and soon to be nicknamed the Iron Lady. "Today, finished dreaming. There is no alternative . Last year, Interallié rewarded writer and journalist Jean-René Van der Plaetsen for "Nostalgia for Honor" (Grasset).