Femina 2026 honours Yannick Haenel, Laura Kasischke and Jennifer Tamas
· BehindLines newsroom
The Femina jury named its winners in Paris on 4 November 2026. Yannick Haenel is rewarded in French fiction for "La solitude des professeurs est infinie" (Gallimard), Laura Kasischke in foreign fiction and Jennifer Tamas for the essay.
The three winners
According to Livres Hebdo and ActuaLitté, Yannick Haenel won on the second ballot. His novel follows Jean Deichel, a young teacher in a Paris-suburb middle school; franceinfo describes it as an epic about an almost unbearable profession. Laura Kasischke is honoured for "Baignade surveillée" (Gallimard, translated by Céline Leroy), set in the United States in 1969 around the drowning of a five-year-old. Jennifer Tamas receives the essay prize for "Barbe Bleue, contre-enquête" (Seuil). Both were elected on the first ballot, per Livres Hebdo and ActuaLitté.
A week dominated by Gallimard
Livres Hebdo stresses that the Madrigall group, which owns Gallimard and Flammarion, achieves a "small slam" this week: Médicis to Philippe Vasset, Goncourt to Philippe Jaenada, Renaudot to François-Henri Désérable, then Femina. The same article says Haenel's book, a Goncourt finalist, has sold more than 45,000 copies. Haenel had already received the Décembre, Interallié and Médicis prizes for earlier books.
A setting and some controversy
ActuaLitté reports that the ceremony moved from the Musée Carnavalet to the Maison Dior on avenue Montaigne, which the jury presents as unfunded and fully independent. The same site recalls that it had reported suspicions of plagiarism between Haenel's novel and a book by Fabrice Sanchez published by Plon in 2025; Haenel said he did not know that text. It also notes that a juror, Jeanne Benameur, withdrew in 2025 to protest Hachette's backing.
What remains unknown
The sources differ on some details, such as vote tallies and the exact make-up of the jury, so we do not repeat them. It is unclear whether the prizes will extend sales beyond current print runs, and no court or publisher decision on the plagiarism suspicions is reported.