Nathacha Appanah Wins the 2025 Goncourt Prize for High School Students

Nathacha Appanah has been awarded the 2025 Goncourt Prize for High School Students, after previously winning the Femina Prize at the beginning of November for her novel "La nuit au cœur" (Gallimard), which tells the story of three women caught in the cycle of male violence, as announced by the jury gathered in Rennes.

The only woman in the final selection, Nathacha Appanah expressed her gratitude to the jury for "the wonderful gift you have given me, to Chahinez, to Emma, to literature."

Her novel "La nuit au cœur" intertwines the fates of three women under the influence of jealous, brutal, and manipulative men: the author herself, her cousin Emma, and Chahinez Daoud, a mother of three young children who was burned to death by her husband after she left him in 2021.

"We were deeply moved by these three women's stories and profoundly touched by her writing, which combines complexity, accuracy, and poetry," stated jury spokesperson Elsa Lelaumier, a final-year student from Vence (Alpes-Maritimes), from Rennes City Hall.

The author previously won the Femina Prize for "La nuit au cœur" in early November.

The femicide of Chahinez Daoud in Mérignac, a suburb of Bordeaux, caused a significant uproar and reignited the debate regarding how police and justice systems handle cases of domestic violence against women.

"This is a book I started to contemplate the day after Chahinez Daoud's death," Nathacha Appanah explained to AFP.