The Diplomat
La Nuit au cœur, the novel by the writer Nathacha Appanah, has been chosen winner of the Choix Goncourt de l’Espagne 2025 after deliberation of the student jury gathered at the Residencia de Francia in Spain, in Madrid.
This award, which is part of the international network of elections Goncourt promoted by the Goncourt Academy and the Instituto Francés, recognizes each year one of the finalist works of the prestigious Goncourt Prize from the vote of university students.
The ceremony brought together students and professors from nine Spanish universities: Autonomous University of Barcelona, Autonomous University of Madrid, Cadiz, Complutense University of Madrid, Granada, Oviedo, Seville, Valencia and Valladolid, as well as representatives of the French high schools in Madrid and Barcelona. For several months, the students read, debated and compared the four finalist novels before casting their vote.
In his opening speech, the cultural adviser of the French Embassy in Spain, Simond de Galbert, highlighted the international dimension of the prize, and noted that “The Goncourt Prize is not just an award: it places the work at the center of international literary attention. The winning novel reaches hundreds of thousands of readers and gains worldwide prestige.” “More than forty countries are now organizing their own ‘Goncourt Election,’ he continued. Spain joined this initiative in 2017 and, since then, the project has continued to grow thanks to the commitment of universities and young readers.”
This year’s edition featured the presidency of the Spanish writer Víctor del Árbol, who highlighted during the ceremony the role of literature as a meeting space between cultures. “Literature, he pointed out, has the capacity to turn anecdotal into human and to convey values that go beyond any borders.”
The student jury decided to award La Nuit au cœur for its literary strength and for the way it addresses issues of great social relevance. The novel explores the experience of violence and the process of personal reconstruction through a deeply intimate writing, in which the author invites the reader to accompany her in her own narrative process.
The work’s Spanish translator, Elia Maqueda, who was present at the ceremony, emphasized the intensity of reading involved in the translation process: “To translate is to read very loud, very close. This book is a powerful and deeply moving work.”
The Spanish version of the novel will be published soon (September 2026) under the title La noche en el corazón, at AdN.
Created in 2017, the Choix Goncourt de l’Espagne 2025 is part of an international network present in more than forty countries, which allows thousands of students to discover contemporary French literature and actively participate in the literary debate.
