Laurent Mauvignier Wins Goncourt Prize 2025
According to Iran Book News Agency (IBNA), quoting Le Monde, the Goncourt Prize jury convened on Tuesday (November 4, 2025), following its annual tradition, at the Drouant restaurant in Paris and selected “Empty House,” a novel by French author Laurent Mauvignier, as the winner of the Goncourt Prize 2025.
Mauvignier won in the first round of voting with six votes against four for Belgian author Caroline Lamarche. The novel “Empty House” has been published by Minuit Editions and has sold over 82,000 copies to date. This work had previously received the Le Monde Literary Prize, the Landerneau Readers’ Prize, and the Nancy – Le Point Booksellers’ Prize.
This year’s Goncourt shortlist also included, in addition to Mauvignier, Emmanuel Carrère with the novel “Kolkhuz” (P.O.L Editions), Caroline Lamarche with “Dark Beauty” (Seuil Editions), and Nathacha Appanah with “A Night in the Heart” (Gallimard Editions). Appanah had won the Femina Prize 2025 just one day before the Goncourt announcement.
“Empty House” is a voluminous work of about 750 pages that recounts the fate of three generations of women; women who stood against male violence and two world wars. This novel continues Mauvignier’s perennial concerns with family, memory, and suffering, and, like his previous work “Night Stories,” returns to childhood memories and the absence of the author’s father, who passed away in 1976 when Mauvignier was less than ten years old.
According to the publisher, in a dilapidated house, only a piano, a wardrobe, a Legion of Honor medal, a strand of hair, and a photo with a cut-out face remain. The narrator returns to the past to understand what happened in this house, recounting the eventful fates of Mariarnestine and Marguerite; women who resisted male violence and the devastation of two world wars.
His second novel, “Learning to End” (2000), won the Wepler Prize, the Livre Inter Prize, and the Second Novel Prize. In 2006, inspired by the Heysel Stadium disaster in Belgium, Mauvignier wrote the novel “Among the Crowd,” which received the Fnac Novel Prize for its fast-paced rhythm. Three years later, he published the novel “Men,” a narrative of bitter memories of the Algerian War, which was adapted into a film by Lucas Belvaux in 2020.
In 2015, Mauvignier entered the world of theater by writing the play “Return to Bratham” for French choreographer Angélin Preljocaj. This work, performed at the Avignon Festival, won the Émile Augier Prize from the French Academy the following year.
Other works by him include “Around the World” (2014), “Continuing” (2016), and “Night Stories” (2020), all published by Minuit Editions, which respectively received the Amerigo Vespucci Prize, the Culture and Libraries for All Prize, and the Replique Prize. In 2015, Mauvignier received the Grand Prize of the Society of Authors (SGDL) for his body of work, and in 2017, he was awarded the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) of France.
The Goncourt Prize (Prix Goncourt), founded in 1903 by brothers Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, is considered the most important and prestigious literary award in France. This prize is awarded annually for “the best fictional work in the French language.” The monetary value of the prize is only 10 Euros, but receiving it traditionally leads to significant sales for the winning work. The selection and announcement ceremony always takes place at the historic Drouant restaurant in Paris. Notable past winners include Marcel Proust, André Malraux, Simone de Beauvoir, and Leïla Slimani.
