The author and journalist Philippe Vasset was awarded the Médicis Prize on Monday for his novel "Dans les grands ligne" (Flammarion) for which he traveled for two years across France following high-voltage lines.
Published on: 02/11/2026 - 2:44 p.m. Modified on: 02/11/2026 - 2:47 p.m.
The literary prize season is open. The Medici Prize was awarded, Monday, November 2, to the writer Philippe Vasset for his novel “Dans les grands ligne” (Flammarion), the story of a crossing of France following high-voltage lines.
The jury, chaired by the novelist Pascale Roze and including the writers Marie Darrieussecq, Anne Garréta and Andreï Makine, preferred this book to the six other selected works, which were all written by women.
In the category of foreign novels, the Medici was awarded to the Spaniard Eva Baltasar, for “Decline and fascination” (Verdier) and, for the essays, to Jean-Baptiste Del Amo for “Une claircie” (Stock). He also awarded, with a special prize, “Pessoa, the work-life” (Threshold), a 1,200-page biography of the Portuguese writer written by Richard Zenith.
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Philippe Vasset is an author "who stands in the out-of-the-way paths, this time under the main lines, from pylon to pylon. This gives a fascinating, concrete, geographical, scientific, funny and poetic book", greeted Pascale Roze while announcing the prices in a Parisian restaurant.
The winner declared himself particularly happy to be rewarded "for such an improbable book", without hiding that his publisher had been "doubtful" when he told him of his project.
Aged 54, Philippe Vasset spent two years crossing France, following high voltage lines for hundreds of kilometers starting from the Paris region.
"We rarely have the opportunity to observe these large poles up close: most often, they remain distant, planted in the middle of fields crossed by roads from where we can see them without seeing them", testifies the author in his work.
Author of several works since the beginning of the 2000s, including on the white areas of IGN maps, Philippe Vasset is also a journalist in the Indigo Publications group, specializing in publications on geopolitics and intelligence, where he writes a letter on luxury.
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As for the other prizes, the Medici jury did not keep in its selection the novel by the Canadian-Haitian Thélyson Orélien, “It was that or die” (Grasset), accused of having been written largely by artificial intelligence, which its author denies.
In 2025, the Medici was awarded to Emmanuel Carrère's novel, "Kolkhoze" (P.O.L).
It was proclaimed this year on the eve of the Goncourt and Renaudot prizes and two days before the Femina.
With AFP
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