It is a book that you can add to the selection that you will have to bring in your suitcases this summer. Joseph Incardona's novel, "The Subtraction of Possibilities", published by Finitude, won the Relay Prize for reader travelers, in which Europe 1 is a partner. The winning novel won in front of "La commode aux tiroirs de couleurs", by Olivia Ruiz, and "Les services competent" by Iegor Gran.
Faced with the quality of the three books in the running, the jury, chaired by Antoine Nougarède, Managing Director of Retail & Connexions and in which appears the specialist in European literature 1 Nicolas Carreau, had to go through a lively discussion to choose the winner.
The late 80s as a backdrop
The story of Joseph Incardona's novel takes place at the end of the 1980s. Capitalism and its champions, the Golden Boys of international finance, have won: the Eastern bloc explodes, the flow of money is globalized. Everything becomes a commodity, bodies, women, power, even happiness. We are inventing a new world, based on algorithms and GMOs. But when we make the little ones dangle access to the big boys' court, it remains a decoy.
In Geneva, in 1989, Svetlana, an ambitious banking executive, met Aldo, a vaguely gigolo tennis teacher. They love each other and they want more. More money, more power, more recognition. As they carefully prepare the blow that should change their lives, they do not imagine being the puppets of bigger, smarter, more ferocious than them. We do not play with money from the powerful with impunity. And for finance sharks, love is not a safe haven. Aldo and Svetlana have no chance.
A jury made up of travel professionals, journalists and writers
This year, the jury was chaired by Antoine Nougarède, surrounded by Carole Tabourot (President of Lagardère & Connexions), Mathieu Daubert (Client Director of the ADP Group), Anne Rubinstein (Director of Cabinet of the Director General of Public Assistance-Hospitals from Paris), Laure Kermen-Lecuir (General Delegate of the Foundation & Director of Citizen Engagement of the ADP Group), Olivier Norek (Author and Relay Price of Voyageurs Readers 2019), Karine Tuil (Author), and Nicolas Carreau (Journalist European literary 1).