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Nathacha Appanah Wins 2025 Prix Femina for ‘La Nuit au cœur’

An all-women jury recognized a searing investigation into intimate-partner violence.

Overview

  • The award was announced on November 3 at Paris’s Musée Carnavalet after a second round of voting by 12 jurors.
  • La Nuit au cœur interlaces the stories of Emma, Chahinez Daoud, and the author to probe the mechanics and human cost of abuse.
  • Appanah, 52, called it her first major autumn literary prize and described the book as a long effort to understand the dynamics of violence.
  • The Femina foreign novel prize went to Irish writer John Boyne for Les Éléments, and the essay prize to Marc Weitzmann for La Part sauvage.
  • Appanah remains on the four-book Prix Goncourt shortlist, with that decision expected on Tuesday.