--- title: Yannick Haenel Wins the Prix Femina 2026 a Day After Losing the Goncourt description: Yannick Haenel won the Prix Femina 2026 for La solitude des professeurs est infinie. Laura Kasischke and Jennifer Tamas won the foreign novel and essay prizes. author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief) date: 2026-11-04T15:00:00.036Z updated: 2026-11-04T15:00:00.056Z canonical: https://thequantumoflight.com/article/prix-femina-2026-yannick-haenel image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/pexels-36650154.webp categories: Literary Culture content_type: News region: France publication: The Quantum of Light about: - type: Person name: Yannick Haenel description: French novelist and a finalist for the 2026 Prix Goncourt with La solitude des professeurs est infinie (Gallimard). jobTitle: Novelist --- Yannick Haenel won the Prix Femina on Wednesday 4th November for *La solitude des professeurs est infinie* (Gallimard), one day after the same novel lost the Prix Goncourt. The all-female jury chose it in the second round with six votes, against two each for Emma Marsantes, for *N'efface pas mes cercles* (Verdier), and Lucie Rico, for *Mais que fait ce sang sur le pull de Jennifer ?* (P.O.L). ### Book: La solitude des professeurs est infinie By Yannick Haenel Thirty years on, the narrator Jean Deichel looks back on his first year as a French teacher at a difficult school in Mantes-la-Jolie, west of Paris. Worn down by long journeys, money worries and fading hopes, he retreats into a deep solitude. A finalist for the 2026 Prix Goncourt. [Fnac](https://www.fnac.com/SearchResult/ResultList.aspx?Search=9782073161925) The jury announced its prizes in the winter garden of the Maison Dior at 30 avenue Montaigne in Paris, its new home after five years at the Musée Carnavalet. Brigitte Giraud, who won the Goncourt in 2022, chaired the jury this year. Asked about the new address, the jury said no money was involved and that it keeps its total independence. ## La solitude des professeurs est infinie by Yannick Haenel The title translates as *The Loneliness of Teachers Is Infinite*. Jean Deichel, Haenel's fictional double, looks back to his trainee year teaching French at a struggling secondary school in the Paris suburbs, lodging at a tennis club in Deuil-la-Barre. Livres Hebdo's critic Julie Malaure described the novel's account of a young teacher's first steps as 'premiers faux pas, premières suées, premiers émois amoureux aussi': first missteps, first cold sweats and first loves too. Haenel taught French for 17 years, and he began the book after the murder of the teacher Samuel Paty in October 2020. Near its last page, the novel names itself a tribute to Paty and to Dominique Bernard, the two teachers killed in attacks in France in 2020 and 2023. It runs to 320 pages and has sold more than 45,000 copies. On Tuesday, the Académie Goncourt [gave its prize to Philippe Jaenada](https://thequantumoflight.com/article/prix-goncourt-2026-philippe-jaenada) by six votes to three over Sylvain Prudhomme, leaving Haenel among the finalists who did not win. ## Yannick Haenel From Cercle to the Femina Haenel was born in Rennes in 1967, the son of an army officer. He founded the literary journal *Ligne de risque* in 1997 and today runs the journal *Aventures* and its book series at Gallimard. Jean Deichel first appeared in *Cercle* (2007), which won the Prix Décembre and the Prix Roger-Nimier. *Jan Karski* (2009) won the Prix Interallié and the Prix du roman Fnac, and *Tiens ferme ta couronne* (2017) won the Prix Médicis. With the Femina, Livres Hebdo counts him as the writer with the most wins among France's major autumn prizes. In September, the website ActuaLitté compared Haenel's novel with *Grand Poisson*, a 2025 novel by Fabrice Sanchez set in a school. It found no copied passages and said the resemblances it listed did not prove any borrowing. Haenel said he had never seen Sanchez's manuscript or read the book. ## Laura Kasischke and Jennifer Tamas Win the Other Prix Femina Awards The foreign novel prize went to the American writer Laura Kasischke for *Baignade surveillée* (Gallimard), translated from English by Céline Leroy. On 16th July 1969, as Apollo 11 heads for the Moon, a boy called Richie Manning drowns in a crowded neighbourhood pool, and the lifeguard is blamed at once. Kasischke follows the small events that led to his death and the class tensions behind the town's tidy front gardens. The essay prize went to Jennifer Tamas, associate professor of French at Rutgers University in New Jersey, for *Barbe Bleue, contre-enquête* (Seuil). Tamas goes back to Charles Perrault's tale of Bluebeard and to 17th-century archives to read the story as one about male domination, domestic violence and the killing of women. ### The Other Prix Femina Winners - Baignade surveillée by Laura Kasischke - Barbe Bleue, contre-enquête by Jennifer Tamas ## Gallimard's Group Wins All Four Major Autumn Prizes The Femina completes a clean sweep for Madrigall, the family group chaired by Antoine Gallimard. Its imprints won the [Prix Médicis](https://thequantumoflight.com/article/philippe-vasset-prix-medicis-2026) with Philippe Vasset (Flammarion), the Goncourt with Philippe Jaenada (Flammarion), the [Prix Renaudot](https://thequantumoflight.com/article/prix-renaudot-2026-francois-henri-deserable) with François-Henri Désérable (Gallimard) and now the Femina with Haenel and Kasischke. The only major autumn award to escape the group was the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française, which went to Sébastien Lapaque for *Le rappel des oiseaux* (Actes Sud) on 29th October. The 2026 winners succeed Nathacha Appanah, who won the French novel prize in 2025 for *La nuit au cœur*, Marc Weitzmann, who won the essay prize, and John Boyne, who won the foreign novel prize. ## Frequently Asked Questions **Q: What is the Prix Femina?** The Prix Femina is a French literary prize chosen every year by a jury made up only of women. Twenty-two writers for the magazine La Vie heureuse founded it in 1904, and it is open to French-language books by men and women alike. It is announced in Paris on the first Wednesday of November and now has separate prizes for a French novel, a foreign novel translated into French and an essay. **Q: What is the Prix Femina étranger?** The Prix Femina étranger is the Femina jury's award for a foreign novel translated into French. It was established in 1985 and is announced on the same day as the main prize. **Q: What is the most prestigious literary award in France?** The Prix Goncourt, founded in 1903, is France's oldest and best-known literary prize, and its winner receives a symbolic cheque of €10. The Prix Renaudot, the Prix Femina, the Prix Médicis, the Prix Interallié and the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française make up the other major autumn awards. ### More From the French Autumn Prizes - [Philippe Jaenada Wins the Prix Goncourt 2026 for Reopening a 1949 Murder on the Banks of the Seine](https://thequantumoflight.com/article/prix-goncourt-2026-philippe-jaenada) - [François-Henri Désérable Wins the 100th Prix Renaudot for Le Palais, a Wine Novel Inspired by a Real Forger](https://thequantumoflight.com/article/prix-renaudot-2026-francois-henri-deserable) - [Philippe Vasset Wins the Prix Médicis 2026 for Two Years on Foot Beneath France's High-Voltage Lines](https://thequantumoflight.com/article/philippe-vasset-prix-medicis-2026)