Paris (France) (AFP) – The 2026 Goncourt Prize was awarded on Tuesday to Philippe Jaenada for “L'Inconnue du quai de Javel”, in which the 62-year-old writer leads the investigation into the assassination of a young Breton woman at the end of the 1940s.

Published on: 03/11/2026 - 1:49 p.m.

“It makes visible a woman who has been made invisible, a victim, a young victim about whom the police were not too concerned,” the president of Goncourt, Philippe Claudel, told the press after revealing the name of the winner.

The nine members of the Academy gave six votes to Philippe Jaenada and three to Sylvain Prudhomme for “On the other side of the lake”, a book which follows the trajectory of a photographer who disappears in the high mountains.

“I feel joyful,” declared the winner upon his arrival at the Drouant restaurant in Paris.

Two other works were in the running - "Things that I thought were lost" by Clémentine Mélois and "The solitude of professors is infinite" by Yannick Haenel - at the end of a selection impacted by the Thélyson Orélien affair, which brought about artificial intelligence in the world of publishing.

Presented as one of the favorites, Thélyson Orélien's work "It was that or to die" was withdrawn from the Goncourt selection and eliminated from other literary prizes due to suspicions of use of AI.

Philippe Jaenada thus succeeds Laurent Mauvignier, who won the Goncourt in 2025 with “Maison vide”, which has since become a huge bookstore success.

With “L'Inconnue du quai de Javel” (Flammarion), the writer continues in the intimate-police vein which allowed him to conquer a loyal readership with long-running books like “Sulak” (2013), “La Petite Femelle” (2015) and “La Serpe” (2017).

"When you win a literary prize, it's great, it's joy. Because it's one of the important ways to make your book known, to sell books and to have readers", Philippe Jaenada recently testified, interviewed by AFP.

© 2026 AFP

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