Kevin Lambert Gets Medici: “My First Response Was ‘It Can’t'”

Quebec writer Kevin Lambert didn’t expect to leave Paris with a Medici prize in his suitcase.

Someone wrote to me: “Try to stay this afternoon.” Then someone wrote that I had it, and my first response was “it can’t be”. It made the juror who wrote to me laugh so hardKevin Lambert said.

Contacted in Paris, he explained that he was returning to buy stationery from a stationery shop to thank the man who had given him an apartment in Paris.

I will go on vacation tomorrow with my boyfriendHe insisted on having other plans for his day. At 1:10pm I had to be on the radio, France Inter, for a pre-recorded interview, and that’s when the prize was announced. At opening time we had something else planned.

Trying to answer all the calls at once, he said he was very happy with this success: That is madness. This is very surprising, but really good news.

Besides the novel prize awarded to Kevin Lambert, Prost, The Roman Family, Laure Murad was awarded in the Essay category.

This year the Foreign Novel Prize is awarded Impossible FarewellsConnected to Hong Kong, South Korea MisericordiaBy Lydia George. He still insists on a queer Medici, Kevin Lambert, because Laure Murat’s essay talks about homosexuality, gender identity… aristocrats and Proust.

Kevin Lambert’s happiness increased tenfold, the Medici prize already awarded to the most important person in his eyes: This is a gift that has already been rewarded to me by a very important writer, Marie-Claire Place, explains Kevin Lambert. This is in light of my novel. I think she is with me in the taxi now.

With information from culture columnist Catherine Richter on the show 15-18.