Collection of the Winning Pastiches from the 2019 Competition

On the occasion of the centenary of the publication of Pastiches et Mélanges in 1919, the Société des Amis de Marcel Proust et des Amis de Combray organised its first Proustian pastiche competition. Open to amateurs, professionals and secondary-school classes, this competition invited participants to take up Proust's style in order to produce original texts capable of giving the illusion of having come from his own pen.

This collection brings together the texts awarded prizes in each of the three categories, as well as the pastiches that received at least three votes out of five during the jury's deliberations, which were conducted blind, without knowledge of the authors' names.

Overview

Eighty-seven pastiches were submitted in total. The competition was organised into three categories: the amateur category, open to people who had never published a literary work; the professional category, reserved for authors who had already published; and the school category, intended for secondary-school classes participating collectively.

The award-winning texts explore a variety of registers: accounts of Proustian sociability revisited in light of the contemporary world, society scenes transposed into unexpected settings (a sushi counter, an airplane cockpit, an encounter within the police world), or meditations on memory and time — so many variations that attest to the vitality of Proust's style and the fertility of its imitation.

Authors and Contributors

Nicolas Fréry, First Prize in the amateur category, for Une vieille amie.

Philippe Morel, Second Prize in the amateur category, for À l'ombre, les jeunes flics en pleurs !

Gilles Lucas, Third Prize in the amateur category, for Un pastiche, s'il vous plaît…

Jean-Jacques Salomon, First Prize in the professional category, for La nécessité d'une particule.

Maya Barreau, Second Prize in the professional category, for Un air de fugue.

Willem Hardouin, Third Prize in the professional category, for La soirée-sushi vue par Proust.

The 3e D class of the Collège Léopold Dussaigne (Jonzac, Charente-Maritime), First Prize in the school category, for « Hou, hou, hou, hou. »

The 1ère ES3 class of the Lycée Virlogeux (Riom, Puy-de-Dôme), Second Prize in the school category, for La face cachée de la modernité.

The jury, in alphabetical order, was composed of Jérôme Bastianelli, Anne Borrel, Élyane Dezon-Jones, Isabelle Le Masne de Chermont and Jean Milly.

Contents

• Introduction
• Amateur Category
• Professional Category
• School Category
• Competition Rules
• Jury Members

Bibliographic Information

• Format: paperback, 100 pages
• ISBN: 978-2-9568373-1-2
• Price: 6 €
• Publisher: Société des Amis de Marcel Proust et des Amis de Combray
• Printer: Chartres Repro, Lucé (Eure-et-Loir)
• Legal deposit: May 2019