France - Literature

Goncourt prize goes to Marie NDiaye

Article published on the 2009-11-02 Latest update 2009-11-02 14:51 TU

Marie NDiaye speaks to the media in Paris after winning the Goncourt Prize on Monday.
Reuters

On Monday, France's top literary prize - the Prix Goncourt - was awarded to Marie NDiaye for her novel Trois Femmes Puissantes (Three powerful women). The 42-year-old writer is French-Senegalese and her novel moves between the two countries in three parts.

It begins by following a schoolteacher on a trip from France to Senegal and the second part tells the story of an African woman brought to France by her French partner. The final section is the story of a young woman migrant from Senegal into Europe.

Ndiaye says the theme in the third part of her prize-winning novel, hard-fought immigration into Europe, is "a modern tragedy". She has a French mother and Senegalese father, but did not travel to Africa until she was in her twenties.

Ndiaye published her first novel when she was 17 and today is the only living playwright in the repertoire of France's classical but conservative Comédie Française theatre.

The Le Monde newspaper has described her literary voice as "clear and original" and when Trois Femmes Puissantes was first published last September it received a very positive reception both from critics and in terms of book sales.