On Saturday 27 June, at 3pm, Laurent Mauvignier, Prix Goncourt 2025 for "La Maison vide" (éditions de Minuit), will come to present his work at the Maison de Tante Léonie, at 3pm. A signing session will follow, at 4pm, in the Orangerie.
This invitation is almost self-evident:
- because Marcel Proust remains the most illustrious of the Prix Goncourt laureates, and this symbolic kinship provides a framework that is both fitting and stimulating;
- because the Maison, so central to the title of the book, resonates directly with the Maison de Tante Léonie, a place of origin, memory and transmission;
- because a Proust, admittedly with no direct family connection to the writer, features among the ancestors of Laurent Mauvignier, like a discreet yet striking echo;
- finally, because several readers and critics have likened his writing - and in particular the sweep of his long sentences - to that of Marcel Proust.
In the same spirit, as part of "Les Prix Goncourt chez Tante Léonie", we shall welcome Pierre Lemaître on 12 September.