Dear readers,

Yesterday, King Negrito went to the event that closes the French prizes season: the prix de Flore. The Goncourt, Renaudot, the Femina were already given during the month and I did not talk about that because these are common prizes, that do not really interest me.

On the other hand, the prix de Flore is more “Rock N roll”. First it is given in the Flore, a famous French café for a long intellectual tradition – and you all know how much Negrito loves the intellectuals ! - , the Jury is younger than the other ones – well in fact it seems to be aging a little bit these times butstill – headed by the self called famous Frederic Beigbeder – 99 francs- and was given in the previous years to non academic writers. This is why I was interested in knowing who would get it this year, if they were to crown already installed authors like Amelie Nothomb or Christine Angot, or be moredaring.

Of course, all this happens in St Germain, where the girls have more class, where the boys all look like intellectuals, and where the tourists are always at the wrong place – the Deux Magots terrace was full of freezing tourists while everything was happening fifty meters from there -

Negrito and the St Germain church : so many intellectuals around !

In fact, it was nearly impossible to miss the thing, they had set a huge tent just in Front of Le Flore, and there were Daloyau trucks delivering dozens of kilos of foods and drinks inside the place and there was also a big crowd around , because too many people wanted to get in, while the place was not really extended

Negrito and the crowd : Nice pink dress !

Of course, interviewing the people revealed to be a little bit touchy. It seems that in the Parisian writers surroundings, people tend to lack a little bit of distance with their public image, and some were visibly frightened at the idea to be seen chatting with a leather bear at the entrance of the prix de Flore So I just dropped the idea of asking them why they were here and wanted so much to wait in the cold to get in Рwhile it was so easy to do it in the Grito style (crawl between people legs through the entrance) - , when I noticed this wonderfully perfect specimen of the Germanopratin specimen of intellectual Рthe Germanopratin is the intellectual family living in St Germain des Pr̩s - .

Negrito and the Germanopratin ! Absolute high score !

This one had ALL the visual elements of his specie. Look at the hairs, clean and long, made to move while he talks romantically of some Russian heroes tragic destiny in the 19^th century literature. Of course he has the glasses, without which you cannot pretend to be a Parisian intellectual. The scarf is there, nice and brown – bright colors are for fashion victims like me - and of course he has the velvet jacket, absolute uniform for more than one century now for all the young Parisian intellectuals.

In fact, this specimen is so archetypal that I wondered if he was not a fake, placed here as a modern art performance. But the fact that he did not get in and looked really pissed off, checking around if there was not somebody to make him in, proved me that he was real.. And furthermore, he really reminded me someone

First I thought that it was Bernard Henry Levy, another French intellectual, but no, not showful enough, too classical I was really wondering when I went to the entrance and the light just exploded : yes ! This guy was a young Jean Francois Kervean !

Negrito and Kervean: Hey my friend let me in !

The Kervean is another variety of intellectual, it is the professional critic one. This guy is well known for participating in various newspapers and TV shows where he presents books and gives his – sometimes tough and direct – opinion on the books. I m sure that ten years ago, for the first Prix de Flore, he was also standing outside with his velvet jacket, hoping to get in ! now he is in the place, and will probably defend it against these young arrogant Germanopratins !

In any case, it was clearly time to hurry to the podium where the prize was being given All the Jury plus the DJ were there, and the prize was finally given to Bruce Benderson. To be honest, I have not read his book yet, so I will not do as many did that night, and will remain silent on the book itself. The point is just that once again this was an interesting idea to give the Prie to a translation, and furthermore to a book that has not yet been distributed in the US. There were polite applauses – we are not in a rock concert - and people came back to drinking and talking. It was really crowdy inside, as you can see.. Nearly impossible to take pictures

Prize announcement : journalists , jury, noise ..it was fun !

Maybe I should think about creating a prize, the “Golden Grit” that would be given to the best entry written by a blogger, in my opinion J At the end of the party, I met one guy that gave me a Novel, allegedly to be the 2006 Flore prize winner ! That was really kind of him.

Negrito and the 2006 winner !

This guy is Bertrand Guillot, and I think you do not know him yet But you should remember his name, and his book “La Faune on the Flore” which is really funny if you know the people involved J. In any case, I wish good luck to the 2004 Flore Prize Winner, may he sell a lot of books and write new ones rapidly ! That made me think, maybe I should also write a book, to compete for the 2005 Prize I really have to consider this ! J

Kisses to all, King Negrito goes to read your blogs !

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 20th, 2004 at 12:47 am and is filed under Live and kicking, Paris, Paris, Paris ..., People. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.