A novel firmly rooted in Paris has won the 2026 Goncourt Prize. On Tuesday, November 3, 2026, the Académie Goncourt awarded the prize to Philippe Jaenada for L'inconnue du quai de Javel (Flammarion). The winner’s name was announced at the Drouant restaurant on Place Gaillon, in Paris’s 2nd arrondissement, in keeping with a tradition dating back to 1914.
According to Livres Hebdo, the 62-year-old writer won by six votes to three over Sylvain Prudhomme. He succeeds Laurent Mauvignier, who won last year with La Maison vide. On arriving at Drouant, he simply said he was “joyful,” AFP reports.
The book reopens a case that had been closed for more than seventy-five years. On September 6, 1949, Louise Cansot, 29, a much sought-after model for Montparnasse painters, is found dead on the Quai de Javel, in what is now Paris’s 15th arrondissement, with neither shoes nor a handbag. Four suspects emerge, but the investigation stalls and is eventually closed six months later.
Philippe Jaenada takes up the case as if reopening a box of archives forgotten in the back of a police station. He delves into newspapers from the time, retraces the locations and even draws on the Maigret investigations, which he reread for the occasion, according to ActuaLitté. Along the way, he puts forward his own theory about the murderer and gives the victim a life beyond the mere news story.
The 500-plus-page tome had already made a strong showing in bookstores before winning the prize, with nearly 60,000 copies sold. The famous red sticker should give sales a further boost as the holiday season approaches.
Born in 1964 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, in the Yvelines, Philippe Jaenada won the Prix de Flore for his first novel, Le Chameau sauvage. Since Sulak, published in 2013, he has made a specialty of major criminal cases, recounting them with humor and lengthy asides in parentheses that have become his trademark.
He had already won the Prix Femina in 2017 for La Serpe, and was on the Goncourt shortlist in 2024. This time, he’s got it. We like the idea of an author so attached to the streets of Paris being rewarded for a book that brings to life a quay we often walk along without giving it a second thought.
Four novels made up the final shortlist, all published by imprints of the Madrigall group:
Sylvain Prudhomme, already the winner of the Femina Prize in 2019, offered a story somewhere between a thriller and a nature novel about a photographer who disappeared near a high-altitude lake. Yannick Haenel recounted the first year of a French teacher trainee at a school in the Paris suburbs, while Clémentine Mélois brought a flood of memories to the surface during a move after a breakup.
The jury deliberated with nine members, not ten, following the death in August of Didier Decoin, the Academy’s former president. This 124th edition was also marked by the Thélyson Orélien affair. His novel C'était ça ou mourir (Grasset) was withdrawn from the first shortlist in late September after allegations of plagiarism and the use of artificial intelligence, which the author denies. According to franceinfo, president Philippe Claudel subsequently had the other books in contention checked using an AI-detection tool.
Shortly afterward, in the same place, the 2026 Renaudot Prize was awarded to François-Henri Désérable for Le Palais (Gallimard) on the first ballot, by six votes to four over David Djaiz. A fitting way to celebrate the prize’s 100th edition, chaired this year by Frédéric Beigbeder, as franceinfo reports.
Every year, after the winner is announced, Drouant opens to the public the menu served to the academicians on voting day, with reservations required and for a few weeks only. It’s a chance to step into a jury member’s shoes over lunch, just a stone’s throw from the Opéra. To find out everything about this gourmet event, read our article on Drouant’s special Prix Goncourt menu, and for the story of the establishment, our feature on Drouant, the literary temple of the Prix Goncourt.
2026 Prix Goncourt: the menu served to the academicians at Drouant
The 2026 Prix Goncourt menu, served to the judges at Drouant, is now open to the public at the historic restaurant in Paris’s 2nd arrondissement, in tribute to bourgeois cuisine and the Renaudot’s 100th anniversary, through December 2, 2026. We tried the menu and reveal it to you. [Read more]
The awards season is far from over. The Femina Prize will be awarded this Wednesday, November 4, at the Musée Carnavalet, followed by the Goncourt des lycéens in late November and the Goncourt des détenus in mid-December. Plenty to fill your winter reading pile.
For a comparison with last year, we recommend reading our article on the 2025 Prix Goncourt, awarded to Laurent Mauvignier, the one on the 2025 Prix Médicis awarded to Emmanuel Carrère for Kolkhoze, or the article about the 2025 Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie française, awarded to Yanick Lahens.
Location
Drouant
18, place Gaillon
75002 Paris 2
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Official website
www.academiegoncourt.com
2026 Prix Goncourt: the menu served to the academicians at Drouant
