The Académie Goncourt has announced its longlist. The book garnering the most attention, of course, is Michel Houellebecq’s controversial La carte et le territoire, against which Tahar Ben Jelloun has apparently railed.
But also on the premier French-language literary prize longlist is the lesser-known Moroccan writer Fouad Laroui, for his Une année chez les Français.
According to Banipal, which published Laroui in translation from the Dutch (in which he also writes): In 1996, Editions Julliard published Laroui’s debut novel, The Topographer’s Teeth, which was awarded the Albert Camus Prize in 1997. His second novel, Judith and Jamal, was awarded the Prix Méditerrannée 1998.
You can listen to one of Laroui’s short stories, “The Little Imposter,” translated for Radio Books by Michael O’Loughlin.
