Literary awards in France

Literary awards in France are a prominent feature of the literary season. While the authors of award-winning books often see their sales soar, literary awards quietly play other roles. Pierre-Guillaume Méon, together with Géraldine David, directed the collective work Avons-nous besoin des prix littéraires ?, published by Éditions de l'Université de Bruxelles (October 2026).

What are literary awards for

What are literary awards for? They are for literature, obviously. However, it is better to be cautious about what is obvious when trying to understand an institution. And the purpose of literary awards is so obvious that the organizations that award them sometimes forget to mention it.

Purpose of awards is often unmentioned

On the site of the Goncourt Academy, one will find the details of the conditions to be met to compete for its award, the selection process, and the voting method, but nothing about the purpose of the award or the notion of literary quality. It is true that the will of the Goncourt brothers stipulates that the award should go to the « best work of imagination in prose published in the year ». However, foreign awards are no more explicit. The regulations of the Strega Prize – the major Italian literary award – describe in detail the voting procedures and the conditions for participation, but not the purpose of the award, which remains implicit.

Role of awards found elsewhere

The role of awards is thus found elsewhere, and this is what the chapters of a collective work published this month by Éditions de l'Université de Bruxelles show. If there is one function of awards that is explicit, it is that of increasing sales. It is enough to visit the site of the Booker Prize to read that « the winner and the preselected authors are guaranteed a global readership and can expect a spectacular increase in book sales ».

Awards boost sales

On its site, the Goncourt Academy also claims the effect of its award on sales: « Symbolically, the winner receives a check of 10 euros! But the Goncourt sells books: the print runs of the novel are immediately very large and translations abroad are assured. »

Not all awarded books succeed

However, if some awarded works have been commercial successes, many others, not awarded, have done even better, and some awarded books have been failures. It is cruel to recall that when the Goncourt Prize was awarded to Paul Colin for les Jeux sauvages in 1950, its sales were so low that its publisher, Gaston Gallimard, had the print run figures verified by a bailiff. Moreover, it is difficult to find a relationship between the fact that a book has been awarded the Booker Prize and the number of its subsequent reprints.

Empirical studies on awards

In the chapter co-written with Nicolas Lagios, we review the empirical studies that have estimated the effect of awards on sales. They confirm that despite exceptions, awards increase sales on average. For example, our estimates suggest that the Goncourt increases sales by about 350%, or 260,000 copies. Other studies have obtained similar results for the Strega Prize or the Booker Prize.

Awards can reduce reader ratings

However, success has its downside. We have thus observed that the Goncourt Prize and the Booker Prize reduce the ratings given to books by readers and readers on internet book sales sites, where they leave more negative comments. The effect of awards given by non-professionals points to the mechanism behind this result. For example, the Goncourt for high school students and the Goodreads Internet users' prize, which focus respectively on the same list as the Goncourt and the Booker, increase sales, but do not affect the ratings or the comments.

Economic role of awards

The economic function of awards does not stop at sales. It is embedded in a market that has been structured since the end of the 19th century. Once the advances in printing had made books affordable, and those in education had given them potential readers, it remained only to invent awards to ensure the publicity of one among the others. Editors and the press could then come to complete the ecosystem, as described by Olivier Bessard-Banquy in his contribution.

Awards shape the literary year

Since the 1920s, editors have begun to play the game of advertising and awards. They buy pages to present their books and their authors. The press finds its direct benefit in selling its advertising space. Awards serve it also to find something to fill its pages. Critics can thus devote pages to lamenting that an author has missed an award or to laugh that an award has missed an author. Scandal feeds criticism and the press.

Awards and reader influence

Even though awards are rivaled by the ratings and comments of readers on online book sales sites or those devoted to literature, as Sylvie Ducas writes in her chapter, they continue to structure the literary year. It is to them that we owe the appearance of the literary season, because a book must be published during the season to have a chance of receiving one of the « autumn awards. » Thus, since the year 2000, all novels awarded the Goncourt Prize have been published in August or September, with the exception of l'Ordre du jour, by Éric Vuillard, published on April 29, 2017.

Awards serve economic interests

Awards are not only for selling. They can sometimes serve economic interests in other ways. If patrons can be sincerely devoted to literature, their support for an award can be accompanied by less aesthetic motivations. Barbora Svobodová shows how the Czechoslovak industrialist Tomáš Baťa, founder of the shoe brand of the same name, tried to use literature to motivate his employees and even his fellow citizens. It was for him to « teach them to win », using American popular literature and Jack London as a model.

Awards as international phenomenon

Awards are an international phenomenon – Pulitzer Prize in the United States, Premio Strega in Italy, Deutscher Buchpreis in Germany, Premios Nacionales de Literatura in Spain, etc. –, and each linguistic area has its own. However, within the same linguistic area, it can be difficult for literatures from smaller countries to access larger readerships and markets, hence the usefulness of being awarded in the country where the most readers are located.

French awards and Francophone literature

However, the main French awards give little space to authors and authors from the Francophone world. The awards given in countries with smaller populations can seem like replicas. Unfortunately, to be recognized, they must also take into account the size of the different markets. Tanguy Habrand shows in his contribution how the main Francophone Belgian award, the Rossel Prize, had to navigate between the search for its own identity and the call for recognized jurors in France.

Timing and country matter

Therefore, to win an award, it is not enough to be published at the right time, it is also useful to be published in the right country. French awards have taken time to open up to foreign literatures. François-Xavier Lavenne reminds us that it thus took until 1937 for a foreign author, the Belgian Charles Plisnier for Faux Passeports, to be awarded the Goncourt. The previous year, the jury had refused the award precisely because of his nationality, although his novel Mariages was considered a favorite.

Awards and diplomacy

One can also easily understand that, if awards can be offensive, they can conversely serve diplomatic interests. In his contribution, Fabrice Preyat describes the worldwide distribution of the « International Goncourt Choices ». Created in 1988 at the initiative of the French Institute (the French institutes are public institutions placed under the dual supervision of the ministries of foreign affairs and culture, ndlr) of Cracow, with the support of the Goncourt Academy, the « Goncourt Choice of Poland » has had imitators, so much so that there is now a « Goncourt Choice » in 56 countries.

Awards benefit authors and booksellers

At the two extremes of the publishing sector, one can finally wonder whether awards serve at least the authors and the booksellers. If not all awarded books will be bestsellers, they generally sell and provide the winners with new visibility. And even if Jean Carrière, awarded in 1972 for his novel l’Épervier de Maheux, attributed to the Goncourt the death of his father, the illness of his wife, and finally his divorce, the authors and authors awarded generally benefit from the increase in their sales.

Awards shape the literary landscape

Finally, at the end of the chain, awards serve to indicate to booksellers the books that people will inevitably ask them for, but can also put them in a dilemma if they prefer to recommend other books, as Sophie Creuz recalls at the end of the book. Literary awards thus serve as much as they undermine, make some happy and annoy or disappoint others. Perhaps they ultimately serve mainly to make them talk about themselves.