Share this article Share
Writer and translator Jakuta Alikavazovic has been making waves in French literature for several years. She is known, among other things, for Comme un ciel en nous (2021), winner of the Prix Médicis, in which she spends a night at the Louvre and recounts how her father taught her to discover beauty. Her other books, including the novels Corps volatils and L’Avancée de la nuit, also received high praise and were awarded distinctions such as the Goncourt du premier roman and the Prix Femina.
Her work often explores the intersection of intimacy and history, examining how memory, desire and loss take shape in language. Last autumn, she published her first book with Gallimard, Au grand jamais, a fascinating portrait of her late mother, who once published two poetry collections in Yugoslavia but began a new life after arriving in France.
As a translator, Alikavazovic has worked on the writings of David Foster Wallace, Toni Morrison and Ben Lerner. Pascal Claude speaks with her about the role of beauty in her work.