The Nice Book Festival has unveiled eight novels in contention for the Nice Baie des Anges Prize 2026. A selection that crosses territories, memories and contemporary tensions. Each jury member has selected a title that reflects a literary sensibility and a perspective on the times.
The Nice Baie des Anges Prize celebrates its thirtieth edition. The city of Nice, which has sponsored and endowed this distinction since 1996, highlights a French novel published in the twelve months preceding the Book Festival. The jury, chaired by Franz-Olivier Giesbert, met at the Romain Gary heritage library to unveil the eight selected works. A popular jury of ten readers also accompanies the deliberations.
The 2026 selection brings together texts that explore individual trajectories confronted with intimate, social or historical upheavals. The chosen novels question disappearance, justice, transmission, collective responsibility and technological drift. Each author proposes a way of observing reality, sometimes through pure fiction, sometimes drawing on historical facts or figures.
Eight voices thus compose a contrasting ensemble, where an intimate investigation, a rural satire, a late rebirth narrative, a moral closed-room drama, a paternal flight, a political fable, a dive into the memory of a major writer and a debut novel set against a nuclear catastrophe backdrop intersect.
Human trajectories facing the tensions of the world
The novel chosen by Franz-Olivier Giesbert, I am Romane Monnier by Delphine de Vigan, opens with a disappearance. The narrative is based on traces left by a young woman, entrusted to a stranger. The highlighted quote — “People don’t understand. They think I’m exaggerating. But actually, I’m looking for something that has disappeared.” — sets the tone for a text centered on the search for lost meaning and the fragility of identities.
Paule Constant selects Aqua by Gaspard Koenig, a novel rooted in a rural community confronted with water management. The project to modernize a network pits a high-ranking official returned to his homeland against a grocer attached to an ancient spring. The book stages inhabitants caught in contemporary contradictions, between local beliefs, ecological issues and administrative logic.
Aurélie de Gubernatis chooses Grand Prince by Alexia Stresi. The narrative follows Simone Guillou, 85 years old, convinced she has lived the essential. A late surprise, however, disrupts her daily life. The novel focuses on a territory between the Atlantic and countryside, where light investigation, unexpected encounters and artistic evocations mingle.
Irène Frain highlights The Last Night by Odile d’Oultremont. The text questions speciesism and the toxicity of social relationships through the story of a count who kills a cow “for his sole entertainment”. The central quote — “See it as a confession. A defiance. Of justice and its aberrations.” — announces a tense narrative, where a community organizes its own justice after a trial deemed insufficient.
Jean-Luc Gagliolo chooses Return from Lombardy by Pascal Ruter. The novel opens with a father who leaves the hospital while his son lives his final moments. The text explores the motivations of a man ready to cross moral boundaries to try to save what can still be saved. The selected quote — “That was what it meant to love his son. That was to go that far…” — sums up the intensity of the dilemma.
Nicolas Galup selects The Sky Disappeared by Alain Blottière. The narrative is based on a radical idea: an elderly writer decides to kill Elon Musk after observing a sky disfigured by Starlink satellites. The novel blends ecological reflection, technological criticism and family transmission, as the protagonist’s grandson discovers his testimony twenty-four years later.
Laurent Seksik selects The Disappearance of Things by Olivia Elkaim. The novel revisits Georges Perec’s childhood, when he was sent to the free zone in 1941. His mother, Cécile, subsequently disappeared during deportation. The text reconstructs a maternal figure of whom few traces remain, drawing on the son’s works and testimonies. The author chooses to write “what could have been” to fill the voids left by History.
Finally, Didier van Cauwelaert highlights Combustions by François Gagey. The novel begins in October 2023, during the explosion of the Flamanville nuclear plant. Three men find themselves trapped in a contaminated zone. The narrative explores their illusions, regrets and contradictions. The quoted phrase — “He had just embarked on that dangerous turn sometimes taken by powerful men…” — announces a reflection on the fragility of certainties.
The winner will be announced on May 6, 2026 at Villa Masséna, before an official presentation on May 29 at the opening of the Nice Book Festival. This selection, rich in its approaches and anchors, draws a panorama of current literary concerns.
NicePremium is a free, independent local news outlet.
Help us keep going by supporting our work from €5 per month.
