Mathieu Belezi won, Monday, June 5, the literary prize France Inter, with "Attack the earth and the sun", novel about the conquest of Algeria by the French army, announced the public radio.
This novel published in August 2022 by Le Tripode had already won in September the literary prize of another media, that of the newspaper Le Monde.
Sometimes taking the appearance of a furious prose poem, "Attacking the Earth and the Sun" alternates the voices of a soldier and a settler woman, who advance through the countryside in very harsh conditions.
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The winner of the 49th edition is Mathieu Belezi for "Attaque la terre et le soleil" published by Le Tripode ➡️ https://t.co/L5cY0Ksh5L pic.twitter.com/gkKOrIl2Pa
— France Inter (@franceinter) June 5, 2023
"I imagined these French soldiers sent to Algeria in the 1840s to pacify the country, ragged, hungry, exhausted. Carried away in the turpitudes of a colonization of extreme violence," the author told Libération in March.
The Inter Book Prize has the distinction of being awarded by a jury composed of 24 listeners of public radio. For this 49th edition, they were aged between 23 and 77.
Originally from Limoges, Mathieu Belezi, who also published under his real name, Gérard Martial Princeau, lives in Rome.
Editions Le Tripode have embarked on the republication of his work, starting in March with his first novel dating from 1998, "Le Petit Roi".
With AFP
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