France’s top literary prize goes to novel solving 1949 Paris murder

Fifty-three pages of police reports from 1949 could not solve the murder of a 29-year-old Breton woman, but a 530-page novel has tried. Philippe Jaenada won the Prix Goncourt on Tuesday afternoon for L’Inconnue du quai de Javel, a true-crime investigation that revives the cold case of Louise Cansot.

Cansot was found dead on 7 September 1949. She had become known in Paris as “the woman with a hundred portraits” because of her popularity as a model for artists in Montparnasse. Despite the attention she received, police never identified her killer. The official 300-page police report described her as a woman of “ill repute,” and newspapers at the time speculated that she was a sex worker or drug addict.

Jaenada, born in Île-de-France, has spent his career investigating old news stories. His previous work includes Sulak, a 2013 novel about a charismatic robber who targeted jewelry stores in the 1980s. This is his 13th novel, and he has been shortlisted for the Goncourt four times before winning the award. To build the narrative for this book, he read 74 of the 75 novels in George Simenon’s Inspector Maigret series, which are set in 1940s Paris.

The book aims to correct the record on Cansot’s life and death. Cansot left Brittany at age 16 to work as a maid before starting to sit for painter Jean-Louis Boussingault. He introduced her to other Parisian painters and sculptors. Jaenada suggests the name of the murderer in his text and portrays the victim with empathy, moving away from the negative assumptions of the original investigation.

Le Monde praised the author’s effort to understand his subject, noting the book’s humor and “touch of grumpy tenderness.” The award ceremony took place against the backdrop of a controversy involving another longlisted author, Thélyson Orélien. The Canadian-Haitian writer’s novel, C’était ça ou mourir, was withdrawn from the longlist after allegations that it was “almost entirely” written by artificial intelligence. Orélien’s Canadian publisher, Boréal, severed ties with him following an investigation, though he has denied using AI.

The Académie Goncourt, the Paris-based organization that grants the prize, announced Jaenada as the winner. The award recognizes his successful attempt to solve a case that had remained open for 77 years while restoring the dignity of its victim.