Paris (AFP)
The edition of the novel which won the 2020 Goncourt prize, "L'Anomalie" by Hervé Le Tellier, has reached one million copies, we learned from publisher Gallimard on Friday.
This symbolic bar was crossed thanks to a new circulation of 20,000 copies.
"Week after week, the book continues to sell very well. We are not at all at the end of the phenomenon", told AFP the commercial director of Gallimard, Jean-Charles Grunstein.
The sales of "L'Anomalie", printed in August 2020 at 12,500 copies and not particularly highlighted among the books of the literary re-entry of this prestigious publisher, have gradually accelerated thanks to its selection by the juries of the autumn literary prizes .
Then the closing of bookstores from late October to early December focused sales on some big hits, including this one.
“There's a sort of alignment of planets of a book that starts off well, that has good reviews. And the whole context made the books visible even more so. Readers had little choice, which is why is sad to say for my comrades, "the author told AFP in February.
The sales figure is uncertain.
According to Gallimard, it is 954,000 copies in total (France and abroad), and according to the firm GfK cited by the monthly Livres Hebdo, 770,000 copies in France.
Seven-figure prints have become very rare for French novels, and most often quite unpredictable.
Jean-Charles Grunstein cited, for the group, the example of "The First Sip of Beer and Other Tiny Pleasures" by Philippe Delerm (L'Arpenteur collection, 1997).
More recently, the pocket edition of "Your second life begins when you understand that you have only one" by Raphaëlle Giordano (Pocket, 2017) also exceeded this million mark, after the half-million mark. copies for the original edition (Eyrolles, 2015).
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