“Today, the 20th edition of the Nice Baie des Anges Prize awarded Jérôme GARCIN for his novel *Le Voyant* published by Gallimard,” announced Christian Estrosi, Deputy Mayor of Nice, President of the Nice Côte d’Azur Metropolis.
The jury selected this work from among eight novels in the running. The winner succeeds Sylvain Tesson (*S’abandonner à vivre* – Gallimard).
Presided over by Franz-Olivier Giesbert, the jury included Paule Constant, Irène Frain, Aurélie de Gubernatis, Didier van Cauwelaert, Laurent Seksik, Jean-Luc Gag (Deputy Mayor in charge of historical heritage, literature, combating illiteracy, theater, and the Niçois language), and Nicolas Galup (editor-in-chief of Azur TV).
Chosen by writers and journalists from Azur TV, a popular jury of ten readers, lovers of books and words, was involved in the deliberations.
Since its creation in 1996, at the initiative of the City of Nice, the Nice Baie des Anges Prize has crowned the novelists: Patrick Renaudot, Raoul Mille, Franz-Olivier Giesbert, Gérard de Cortanze, Claude Imbert, Jean-Noël Pancrazi, Paula Jacques, Vénus Khoury-Ghata, Richard Millet, Eric Fottorino, Jean-Paul Enthoven, Didier van Cauwelaert, Saphia Azzeddine / René Frégni (shared prize), Daniel Cordier, Laurent Seksik, Aurélie Hustin de Gubernatis, Romain Slocombe, Valérie Tong Cuong, and Sylvain Tesson.
Journalist, novelist, and essayist, Jérôme Garcin is notably the author with Gallimard Editions of *L’Écuyer mirobolant* (2010, “Folio” no. 5319), *Les livres ont un visage* (2009, “Folio” no. 5134), *Olivier* (2011, “Folio” no. 5445) and *Bleus horizons* (2013, Folio no. 5805). “Bloodied face, Jacques screams: ‘My eyes! Where are my eyes?’ He has just lost them forever. On this azure, lilac, and lily-of-the-valley day, he enters the darkness where only fragrances, sounds, and shapes will now have colors.”
Born in 1924, blind at eight, a resistance fighter at seventeen, member of the *Défense de la France* movement, Jacques Lusseyran was arrested in 1943 by the Gestapo, imprisoned in Fresnes, and then deported to Buchenwald. Released after a year and a half in captivity, he wrote *Et la lumière fut* and went on to teach literature in the United States, where he became “The Blind Hero of the French Resistance”. He died, in 1971, in a car accident. He was forty-seven years old.
Twenty years after *Pour Jean Prévost* (Médicis Essay Prize 1994), Jérôme Garcin portrays another writer-resistance fighter whom France has neglected and whom history has forgotten.
The prize will be awarded to Jérôme GARCIN by Christian ESTROSI on Friday, June 5, at the opening of the Nice Book Festival, which will be held under the presidency of Françoise CHANDERNAGOR of the Académie Goncourt.
