{"id":2074094,"date":"2026-08-23T10:52:57","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T08:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/2026\/08\/23\/the-nohee-book-award-when-90-year-old-readers-choose-the-books-of-the-year\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T11:22:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T09:22:20","slug":"the-nohee-book-award-when-90-year-old-readers-choose-the-books-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/2026\/08\/23\/the-nohee-book-award-when-90-year-old-readers-choose-the-books-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"The Noh\u00e9e Book Award: When 90-Year-Old Readers Choose the Books of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

They read Proust, Hugo, Agatha Christie, and Pr\u00e9vert. They are between 75 and 90 years old\u2014sometimes older. They read every day to escape, to stimulate their memory, and to break the monotony. And every year since 2020, they\u2019ve selected the finalists for the Prix du Livre Noh\u00e9e\u2014a literary prize that, unlike so many others, originates with the readers rather than being imposed on them.<\/p>\n\n

A literary prize born of a conviction<\/h2>\n\n

The Noh\u00e9e Book Prize, worth 5,000 euros, is awarded annually to a novel or short story written in French that focuses on the transmission of knowledge and intergenerational bonds. It is organized by the Noh\u00e9e Book Club, which operates in 39 senior living communities across France, in partnership with the Mollat bookstore. Over the course of six months, residents read, discuss, and evaluate the works based on defined criteria: emotional impact, originality, and quality of writing. This is not a literary fair award. It is an award given by serious readers.<\/p>\n\n

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Screenshot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

The three finalists of the 7th edition\u2014selected by residents prior to the deliberations of a jury chaired by actress Brigitte Fossey\u2014embody this standard. Each title, in its own way, explores what connects us to those who came before us.<\/p>\n\n

Three books, a single common thread<\/h2>\n\n

*They Called Him Bennie Diamond*, by Micha\u00ebl Dichter (Les L\u00e9onides), is set in Antwerp\u2019s diamond district of the 1970s. A coming-of-age novel about passing down a trade, the weight of one\u2019s origins, and the promise of precious stones in a world governed by family legacies.<\/p>\n\n

*Far from the Mekong*, by Louis Raymond (Calmann-L\u00e9vy), recounts a dual journey: that of a young Frenchman searching for his grandmother\u2019s grave in the Mekong Delta, and, a century earlier, that of a young Vietnamese woman who crossed the same lands for entirely different reasons. Between the two lies a family history that generations have failed to pass down.<\/p>\n\n

*L\u2019enfant \u00e0 la t\u00eate baiss\u00e9e* by Alexis Salatko (Deno\u00ebl) is the most intimate of the three. A rare condition that makes it impossible to eat in front of others, a childhood marked by being different, and reading as a refuge\u2014and later, as a home. A story that moved the book club\u2019s readers more than any other, because it speaks to what books do when nothing else works.<\/p>\n\n

What the Price Really Reveals<\/h2>\n\n

There is something profoundly unconventional about the Noh\u00e9e Book Prize. In a publishing world where literary juries are often drawn from the same Parisian circles, where networking is sometimes worth more than prose, this prize comes from the grassroots: senior living communities, solitary Tuesday-morning readings, women who quote Pr\u00e9vert and Dumas from memory.<\/p>\n\n

The winner will be announced in October 2026. Whoever it may be, they will have achieved something rare: the approval of readers who have nothing left to prove and who read solely for the love of reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They read Proust, Hugo, Agatha Christie, and Pr\u00e9vert. They are between 75 and 90 years old, sometimes older. They read every day\u2014to escape, to stimulate their memory, and to break the monotony. And every year since 2020, they have selected the finalists for the Noh\u00e9e Book Prize\u2014a literary award<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":214,"featured_media":2074095,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[66849],"tags":[80894],"class_list":["post-2074094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literature","tag-nohee-book-award"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2074094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/214"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2074094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2074094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2074095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2074094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2074094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2074094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}