Paris (AFP)
The novel by French writer Hervé Le Tellier "L'Anomalie" became the second Goncourt prize, the most prestigious French literary distinction, the best-selling in history, we learned on Monday from its publisher, Gallimard editions .
The Goncourt 2020 has surpassed in this place a book of a completely different kind, "Les Bienveillantes" by Franco-American Jonathan Littell, crowned in 2006 for these fictional memoirs of an SS officer.
"L'Anomalie" has sold some 633,000 copies since its release in August, according to figures from the GfK institute, while "Les Bienveillantes", now third, has sold 618,000 copies in fifteen years, Gallimard clarified.
Eighth novel by Hervé Le Tellier, it tells the consequences of a strange event, namely that a Paris-New York flight occurs twice, with the same passengers, a few months apart.
The most successful Goncourt remains "L'Amant" by French author Marguerite Duras, who won the award in 1984. It has sold 1.63 million copies, according to Editions de Minuit, which no have never released a pocket edition.
The unexpected success of Hervé Le Tellier exceeded all the expectations of its author and its publisher, who had launched it with a modest circulation of just over 12,000 copies.
"I have not yet fully taken the measure of what this represents (...) compared to most of my books before, which have never exceeded 30,000 to 40,000 copies, which is already a lot" , the novelist said on RTL radio Monday.
"But here we come to levels that surprise me, which are undoubtedly linked to a whole series of factors that we can analyze objectively, and subjectively too. But yes, that totally changes the place of a writer in the landscape. literary, ”he added.
"People are unfortunately confined, and books are taking advantage."
The circulation of "The Anomaly" now reaches 930,000 copies, with a current rate of just under 20,000 copies sold each week.
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