Overview
- The Femina jury of 12 women awarded the prize on Monday at Paris’s Musée Carnavalet after a second-round vote.
- La Nuit au cœur intertwines three narratives of gendered violence, including the cases of Chahinez Daoud in 2021 and the author's cousin Emma in 2000, alongside the author's own experience.
- Appanah, 52, called it her first major autumn prize and described the book as a work to understand the darkness and dynamics of violence, according to AFP.
- John Boyne won the Femina for foreign novel for Les Éléments (JC Lattès) and Marc Weitzmann took the essay prize for La Part sauvage (Grasset).
- Published by Gallimard, the winning novel prevailed over works by Jakuta Alikavazovic, Lionel Duroy, Joseph Incardona, and Laurent Mauvignier, as Appanah remains a finalist for Tuesday’s Goncourt.