The Corsican novelist, known for her thrillers, is crowned for her first foray into white literature with The Silences of Ogliano, published in January by Actes Sud.
The literary prize of the Closerie des Lilas, to the jury and to the exclusively female winners, was awarded on Tuesday to the Corsican novelist Elena Piacentini for The Silences of Ogliano (ed. Actes Sud).
This native of Bastia led her career as a novelist from Lille, where she created a policeman character exiled in the North, Pierre-Arsène Leoni.
The award-winning novel, published in January by Actes Sud, marked the entry of this novelist into so-called white literature, as opposed to her noir novels.
In the fictional village of Ogliano, which could be on the Island of Beauty, in Sardinia or in Sicily, a young man of an unknown father will rebel against omerta and ancestral conventions.
The winner is the guest for one year (up to 3,000 euros) of the famous brasserie on the boulevard du Montparnasse in Paris.
Elena Piacentini received 8 votes, against 5 for Hélène Gestern with her novel 555 (Arléa editions), devoted to the music of Domenico Scarlatti and winner this year of the RTL-Lire/Magazine Littéraire prize.