COMPOSITION OF THE 2018 JURY

Heir to the Nouveau roman (avant-garde French novel movement) through his studious attention to language and the possibilities of storytelling, Jean Echenoz has set himself apart by the ironic and comic aspects of his novels, peopled by weary, drifting and laughable characters placed in surprising or incongruous situations. His style is therefore a mix of highly diverse influences and citations from Laurence Sterne (British writer, 1713-1768) or Diderot (1713-1784) to spy novels. He also draws extensive inspiration from the world of cinema and incorporates the style of jazz with its variations, syncopation and dissonance.

This is a man who, when he is not writing or reading, professes to enjoy strolling around cities and watching what’s going on in the street. Each page of his books is teeming with details of all sorts, sometimes useful for the plot’s progression, but more deliberately downright digressive, gradually painting an extraordinary and comic picture of our time, our urban or rural settings and the daily habits of the contemporary individual.

For Echenoz, places are characters, drivers of fiction, of possibilities, the subjects and objects of storytelling. And every time he visits friends, he plants trees in their grounds and gardens “as he plans things over the very long term: he reforests and any time is a good time”. For him, the aim is to “plant trees whose trunks will be used to build the future royal fleet. From these acorns he buries, masts, hulls, bridges and steerage will grow…”