François-Henri Désérable wins the Prix Renaudot for "Le Palais"
The 2026 prize, marking its hundredth edition, goes to Désérable's novel published by Gallimard. Companion prizes went to essays on happiness and on Homer's Odyssey, and to a paperback on Eastern Europe.
François-Henri Désérable has won the Prix Renaudot 2026 for Le Palais, published by Gallimard, according to Livres Hebdo and Le Monde. The announcement marks the hundredth edition of the prize, one of the major French literary awards handed out each autumn alongside the Goncourt.
Télérama notes that Désérable succeeds Adélaïde de Clermont-Tonnerre, who won the Renaudot in 2025.
Also in contention for the fiction prize, according to Le Monde, were La méthode by David Djaïz (Stock), Stay Free by Patrice Jean (Le Cherche midi), Un corps indocile by Osvalde Lewat (Philippe Rey), Eugénie sous les bombes by Anne Percin (Buchet Chastel), and Heures sauvages by Marie Petitcuénot (Éditions Héloïse d'Ormesson).
The Renaudot jury also awards prizes in non-fiction and paperback categories. This year's essay prize was shared, ex aequo, between Jean-Paul Enthoven for Dictionnaire amoureux du bonheur (Plon) and Christophe Ono-dit-Biot for L'odyssée de l'Odyssée (Grasset), per Livres Hebdo and Télérama. The paperback prize went to Jean-Christophe Buisson for Complètement à l'Est ! (Tempus), according to Livres Hebdo.
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This article was written from these reports.