Congratulations from Aurélie Filippetti, Minister of Culture and Communication, to Patrick Deville

I am very pleased with this choice, which distinguishes a work as astonishing by its subject as by its form. A double challenge that this metamorphosis author cultivates the habit, from «Cordon Bleu» in 1987 to «Kampuchea» in 2011 through «La Tentation des armes à feu» in 2006. I also extend my warmest congratulations to the publishing house The Threshold.

From book to book, this great traveler of letters and surveyor of the globe has been able to restore to us a parcel of these continents to the proud temperament where he lived or stayed: Middle East, Nigeria, Algeria, Cuba, Urugay, Central America. He was responsible for the creation of the Prix de la jeune littérature latino-américaine and a literary magazine in Saint-Nazaire, proof of his attention to others and his fidelity to his “small country”.

With «Peste & choléra», at the accelerated pace of very short chapters, he follows in the footsteps of Alexandre Yersin, a young researcher from the first team of the Institut Pasteur. In 1894, he discovered the plague bacillus in Hong Kong, the culture of the rubber tree or the quinquina tree. “It’s not a life not to move,” said the little homely scientist.

The Fémina marks the beginning of an important week for writers, publishers and all lovers of books and literature.