Credits: ActuaLitté / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 2.0.
In Rennes, on November 27, 2025, thirteen representatives of about 2,000 high school students awarded French-Mauritian novelist Nathacha Appanah the Goncourt des lycéens for The Night at the Heart. Also honored with the Femina and the Renaudot des lycéens, this book confronting violence against women was celebrated that same evening at the Élysée Palace. Youth as judge and tastemaker, a text that compels us to look.
At Rennes City Hall, A Decision Driven By Youth
The final deliberation took place in Rennes. Thirteen jurors (12 girls and 1 boy) from all regions made their choice after about two hours of heated debate: Nathacha Appanah receives the Prix Goncourt des lycéens 2025 for The Night at the Heart, published by Gallimard. The announcement, made on 11/27/2025 around 1:00 p.m., sounded like the epilogue to a long effort carried out from September to November by nearly 2,000 students from around fifty to 57 high schools in France and abroad. The scene is simple, almost austere: chairs lined up, notebooks open, young voices speaking with emotion and conviction.
A Triple Award Season That Changes The Scale
The Rennes distinction adds to two major literary awards: the Prix Femina (awarded on 11/03/2025) and the Renaudot des lycéens (11/13/2025). In one fall, The Night at the Heart has therefore achieved a triple literary consecration. Since its publication on 08/21/2025, the book has sold about 52,000 copies. It has risen to the top of several bookseller rankings. This momentum confirms the ripple effect of fall awards. Youth now plays a leading role in it.
A Chiaroscuro Novel: Three Women, One Shared Vertigo
The narrative weaves together three destinies: Chahinez Daoud, Emma, and Nathacha Appanah herself. Two are dead, victims of femicide. The third, the author, tells of survival the body that remembers, fear reclaimed through words. Mérignac in 2021, Mauritius in 2000: two places, two crimes, the same intimate rupture. In The Night at the Heart, the demand for precision is at stake. It is not about impossible completeness, but about getting as close as possible. It is about sensation, breath, the falling night, and language that holds. Nothing is softened. The high school students say it: a book that is “raw,” “realistic,” sometimes nauseating, and that shakes people awake.
In The Classroom, Shock And Speech
For nearly two months, the students read, compare, and debate. Encounters with authors multiply in the regions and in Paris. For example, a session at Cabaret Sauvage on 10/06/2025 comes to mind. In this close contact with the texts, the words take on new weight. One juror, Manon, 17, says they sometimes had to stop, catch their breath, because some pages were so hard to read, especially those revisiting the murder of Chahinez Daoud. That is the strength of the program: opening up discussion in the classroom, sharpening critical thinking, nurturing a love of reading. Teachers say the same thing: literature becomes a matter of shared attention.
At The Élysée, An Award That Commits
On the evening of 11/27/2025, the winner receives her prize at the Élysée Palace, in Paris. It takes place in the presence of the President of the Republic, his wife, and about 200 high school students. The head of state praises a magnificent and moving novel, then sees this reading as a decisive contribution. Indeed, it contributes to the fight against violence against women. He takes the opportunity to remind everyone that reading remains an act of resistance: attention stretches out, experience deepens, far from the endless scrolling of videos on our phones. A way to inscribe, at the heart of protocol, a defense of long time.
What A Youth Prize Decides
Created in 1988, the Goncourt des lycéens has established itself in the landscape. It is co-organized by Fnac and the Ministry of National Education, under the high patronage of the Académie Goncourt. Its secret? A selection of 14 novels, almost identical to that of the adult Goncourt Prize, a chain of readings and regional meetings, then a final body that condenses the collective journey in Rennes. Some years, its influence as a tastemaker drives massive sales, to the benefit of bookstores and libraries. Here, the movement is clear: Nathacha Appanah’s media visibility changes scale, and the author enters broader renown, especially among teen readers.
The Art Of The Encounter: A Steady Voice, A Shared Perspective
Nathacha Appanah, a French-Mauritian novelist born in 1973 in Mahébourg, lives and writes in France. She has long felt what exile shifts: the sense of distance, the need to find a voice. Her work carries the themes that run through it: origin, youth, social and intimate violence, the sea as horizon. Her language, precise and supple, keeps a certain light even when it moves into the night. The Night at the Heart is probably her most personal novel. In it, she returns to a violent relationship and asks: how does love become warped, turning into poison at the very edge of the body? In meetings with high school students, she notes the frankness of the questions and the demand regarding language. Moreover, these “very precious” moments of confidences extend the reading after the official session.
A Rigorous Process, A Collective Decision
Each participating school appoints delegates. They defend their choices at the regional level. From there, some are selected to make up the final jury in Rennes. On 11/27/2025, the protocol is clear: 10 minutes of speaking time per book, one round of arguments, one vote. The Night at the Heart prevails. Elsa Lelaumier, spokesperson for the jury, captures its momentum: a committed, realistic choice that names a “long-taboo issue.” Nothing like a capricious favorite: rather, the realization that literature can, here and now, make visible what still remains too invisible.
Reading Stakes: Attention And Emancipation
This prize says something about our moment. At a time when attention span is fragmented, reading appears as a support for youth. Not a refuge, but an exercise in freedom. Reading requires making time, confronting otherness. In The Night at the Heart, otherness is immediate and close: broken lives and wounded bodies. Moreover, society still hesitates to name domestic violence for what it is: crimes. The high school students felt it: the text shifts the gaze, unfolds nuances, gives words to speak.
The Role Of Institutions And Booksellers
The partnership between Fnac and National Education ensures the prize’s roots in schools. Booksellers, for their part, quickly measure the impact of the deliberations. The rankings adjust, and the new-release tables are reorganized around the prize-winning books. The book lives on through the word of mouth of classrooms and then, very quickly, through that of families. This year, the momentum translates into sustained sales and wider circulation of the novel in libraries. The Goncourt des lycéens is not just a trophy: it is a mechanism that gets people reading.
Reading And Care: A Few Useful Resources
Talking about violence against women requires sobriety and care. In any emergency, call 911 (or 988 for mental health crises in the United States). For listening and guidance, National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788 (anonymous and free). These numbers do not exhaust the help available: associations, shelters, specialized counseling.
Mentions And Credits
Prize co-organized by Fnac and the Ministry of National Education, under the high patronage of the Académie Goncourt. Direct quotations attributed to Nathacha Appanah and the President of the Republic are reported as stated during the meetings and the ceremony.
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