Lily Brett wins Prix Medicis for Lola Bensky

by Virginia Lloyd | Nov 4, 2014 | Blog, Client book news and links | 3 comments
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I am delighted with today’s news that Lily Brett won the major French literary award, the Prix Medicis, for a work in translation for her novel Lola Bensky. It’s a major vindication for Lily’s writing, and a proud moment for me as her long-time editor.
Lily and I first met when I was a junior editor at Pan Macmillan Australia in the late 1990s. I have edited her fiction and nonfiction ever since. After her husband David Rankin, I am honoured to be her first reader.
The author-editor relationship is a little bit like doctor-patient confidentiality. And so while I’d love to discuss in detail how we work together, I won’t. All I will say is that I’m particularly proud of her achievement with Lola Bensky because the novel’s path to publication was less than smooth.
I hope this award spurs many sales of this and other books of Lily’s in France and elsewhere. I love this photo of her in Paris in 1948, aged two, in the new white rabbit-fur coat that her father obtained on the black market. A triumphant return to Paris today for Lily.
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