Prix de Flore – 25 years
by Abdon FLORES
1994 seems to be a rather far year from another epoch. That year in Paris, Frédéric Beigbeder and Carole Chrétiennot, both young and unbridled with enthusiasm, convinced the owners of Café de Flore, the most famous café in the world, to organize a literary prize. Due to the nature of the founders –a young writer and a young PR– it was decided to make it a prize for young talents. They had a good start since the marraine of the first edition was mythical writer Françoise Sagan…
25 years later, the Prix de Flore is a rather established prize in the heavy literary calendar of November. In the always not-politically correct invitation, it was written that Kate Moss was 20 when the prize was created. It will always be memorable to attend to this irreverent spectacle in a place considered an epicenter of Parisian life. A place to see and to be seen.
1 title was chosen among the four finalists: Rhapsodie des oubliés by Sophia Aouine (La Martinière). A first novel telling the story of the forgotten people in the not-so-fancy Rive Droite. Where it exists a place called “The crack hill”, it is sure that some narrative can be developed. Mlle. Aouine has won a juicy loot of 6,100 € plus a daily Pouilly glass at the Café and a Louis Roederer special bottle.
Years pass and one cannot but wonder if such awesome events as this one will last in the years to come. Well, if the will is there, if the talent surges and the good money flows, the answer will be positive.
