Goncourt

NPC Description

Type: Merchant

Beyond Atlantica, history and legend:

The Goncourt brothers were Edmond de Goncourt (1822-96) and Jules de Goncourt (1830-70), both French Naturalist writers. They formed a partnership that is possibly unique in literary history. Not only did they write all their books together, they did not spend more than a day apart in their adult lives, until they were finally parted by Jules's death in 1870.

Their career as writers began with an account of a sketching holiday together. They published books on aspects of eighteenth-century French art and society (eg Portraits intimes du XVIII siecle), dismissing the vulgarity of the Second Empire in favour of a more refined age. They also wrote the long Journal des Goncourt from 1851, which gives an interesting view of the literary and social life of their time. They are often not only caustic, but even spiteful.

They published six novels, of which Germinie Lacerteux, 1865, was the fourth. It is based on the true case of their own maidservant, Rose Malingre, whose double life they had never suspected.

Their emphasis on pathological cases occasionally trumped their psychological delicacy, but their impressionist style nonetheless had an intense and original precision.

Source: Wikipedia


The Société littéraire des Goncourt (Goncourt Literary Society), usually called the académie Goncourt (Goncourt Academy), is a French literary organization based in Paris that was founded in 1900 in accordance with the wishes of French writer and publisher Edmond de Goncourt (1822-1896), and in opposition to the then existing policies towards writers by the Académie française.

Wishing to honor his deceased brother Jules (1830-1870), Goncourt named his friend Alphonse Daudet to oversee his estate that he bequeathed for the establishment of an organization to promote literature in France. Each December since 1903, a ten-member board of the académie has awarded the prix Goncourt for the best work of fiction of the year.

Membership is reserved to writers who have produced works in the French language but it is not limited to citizens of France. In 1996 the Spanish novelist and scriptwriter Jorge Semprun became the first foreigner to become a member of the academy.

In addition to the prix Goncourt, which comes with a symbolic cheque of 10 Euros, the Goncourt Academy is also responsible for awarding 5 bourses of a more substantial nature.

The ten members of the academy are usually called les Dix (the Ten), and they meet the first Tuesday of each month, except in summer. Since 1914 they have convened in an oval room, the salon Goncourt, on the second floor of the Drouant restaurant in the heart of Paris. The cutlery or tableware that they use while meeting and dining at the restaurant constitutes the main physical continuity of the academy. Each new member receives the fork and knife of the member which he (or she) is replacing, and a new name is then added on the knife and the fork.

Source: Wikipedia