Sébastien Lapaque Wins the Académie Française's 2026 Grand Prix du Roman

The Académie française awarded its 2026 Grand Prix du roman to Sébastien Lapaque on October 29 for Le Rappel des oiseaux, published by Actes Sud. The vote went to a third round, where Lapaque took eight votes to seven for Yannick Haenel, according to franceinfo, which carried the AFP report. The prize carries €10,000.

A one-vote margin

Three novels reached the final ballot. Haenel's La Solitude des professeurs est infinie (Gallimard) finished second, and Marie Petitcuénot's Heures sauvages (Éditions Héloïse d'Ormesson) received three votes. Members of the Académie voted by secret ballot at their meeting in Paris.

The Académie announced a first selection of twelve novels on October 1 and cut it to three on October 15, ActuaLitté reported. A committee of twelve academicians and alternates draws up the selections before the full membership chooses among the finalists. The prize dates from 1914 and is attached to the Fondation Broquette-Gonin.

The book and its author

Le Rappel des oiseaux came out on October 7. It follows Noé, a boy raised in 1970s Brittany who becomes a scientist studying light. After the loss of the woman he loves, he sets out on a spiritual journey that leads him to Assisi, guided by birdsong and the example of Francis of Assisi. The publisher describes it as tracing "the singular destiny" of its hero.

Lapaque, 55, was born in Tübingen, Germany, and works as a novelist, essayist and literary critic, notably for Le Figaro littéraire. His essay Échec et mat au paradis (Actes Sud), about a meeting between Stefan Zweig and Georges Bernanos in Brazil in 1942, won the Prix Renaudot for the essay in 2024. His earlier novel Ce monde est tellement beau (2021) won the Prix Jean-Freustié.

It is not his first honor from the Académie. It gave him the Prix François-Mauriac in 2000 for Les Idées heureuses and the Prix Émile-Faguet in 2023 for his essay on Bernanos, Vivre et mourir avec Georges Bernanos.

He succeeds the Haitian novelist Yanick Lahens, who won in 2025. She was also chosen on a third-round ballot, by 11 votes to 10.

The rest of the autumn season

The Prix Médicis follows on November 2, the Goncourt and Renaudot on November 3 and the Femina on November 4. The Prix Décembre went on October 27 to Anne Godard for Nous aussi (Actes Sud), giving the publisher two of the season's early awards. The full list of past winners is kept on the Académie française's laureates page.

Sources

• franceinfo Culture with AFP, October 29, 2026: Le Grand Prix de l'Académie française attribué à Sébastien Lapaque
• ActuaLitté, October 29, 2026: Sébastien Lapaque Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française 2026
• Académie française: Les lauréats

Photo: Sébastien Lapaque at the Paris Book Fair, March 2015. Photo by ActuaLitté, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0.