Paris (AFP)
The National Library of France (BnF) prize was awarded to essayist Hélène Cixous, the institution announced on Wednesday.
This annual prize, created in 2009, rewards "a living French-speaking author for all of his work".
It had not been delivered in 2020, in the absence of the traditional gala dinner for the patrons of the Library due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The BnF hailed in a press release the wide range of "this committed author, with an unclassifiable literary work".
"There meets the depth of a reflection, the echo of commitments in intellectual life, an intimate search in the meanders of memory, a writing of rare poetry", commented the president of the BnF, Laurence Engel.
Essayist, playwright, poet and literary critic, Hélène Cixous, precursor writer of feminism, perhaps more recognized outside her country than in France, has mixed fiction, autobiography and essays in her writings.
After May 68, she was one of the founders of the University of Vincennes, where in 1974 she created the Center for Feminine Studies and Gender Studies.
At the beginning of October, she published "Rêvoir" (Gallimard editions), notes taken in 2020 which rehash certain moments of her life, present and past, a flood of images outside all modes, while "The Book of Promethea" is republished with a preface and unpublished interview.
Among the past winners of this prize endowed with 10,000 euros, the most recent being Virginie Despentes in 2019, and there are Michel Houellebecq, Emmanuel Carrère, Mona Ozouf and Milan Kundera.
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