French-Moroccan novelist Leïla Slimani won the 2016 Prix Goncourt, the most prestigious French book award, for her novel Chanson Douce (Sweet Song). The New York Times reported that "several commentators had predicted that Ms. Slimani would win. The novel has been a best seller--more than 76,000 copies have been purchased--and Ms. Slimani, 35, has a high profile as a former journalist at Jeune Afrique, a French-language magazine of African news."
"She's a young woman, talented, so we're completely in the spirit of the Goncourt prize," Bernard Pivot, head of the Goncourt Academy.