The France Culture Student Novel Prize: the 5 novels in the running

• Jakuta Alikavazovic, Au grand jamais - Editions Gallimard

The narrator's mother has disappeared. This woman, a poet acclaimed in her own country, had already been erased after settling in France: little by little, writing had left her. The disappearance of her daughter, now a mother in her own right, became a key to solving the "enigma that is a person". Following her instinct - or is it a gift? -she collects the symptoms of a repressed history, until she unearths its beating heart.

" This is a book that acted on me like a mirage, like a real magic trick thanks to an enigmatic, mysterious, extremely literary and poetic language. " Marie Richeux, producer of Book Club on France Culture.

(Re)listen to Jakuta Alikavazovic in Marie Richeux's Book Club

• Thibault Daelman, L'Entroubli - Editions du Tripode

In a working-class district of Paris, a devoted mother, sometimes overwhelmed and excessive, tries to raise five boys despite adversity and an alcoholic father. For one of them, the need to write echoes the dramas and joys that have plagued him since childhood. As if real life were here, in words and a demented memory.

" In this disconcerting book, Thibault Daelman recounts his working-class childhood and his taste for language and writing. It's the story of a young man trying to extricate himself from the difficulties of his milieu through writing, but it goes far beyond the category of the formative narrative and that of the class defector, because its author manages to articulate a unique experience." Lucile Commeaux, producer of the program "Le regard culturel" on France Culture.

(Re)listen to Lucile Commeaux's "Le Regard culturel" column

• Grégory Le Floch, Peau d'ourse - Editions du Seuil

Mont Perdu has dreams that are not those of her Pyrenean village, still struggling with archaic traditions. The portly teenager, a lesbian and a victim of harassment, finds refuge in the mountains, the only ones who speak to her and understand her. Little by little, Mont Perdu is transformed into a bear.

" This book is the UFO of the new literary season! A blend of the ultra-contemporary and the marvelous. [As you will have gathered, this novel is about love, folklore and symbiosis with the living world. But above all, Nina is someone trying to find her place. And that, I'm sure, will resonate with you. " Henri Le Blanc, coordinator of the channel's cultural programs.

• Séphora Pondi, Avale - Editions Grasset

Tom is a pharmacy student who, since childhood, has been the object of bullying, rejection and frustrations that have turned him into a dumped, erotomaniac man with strange devouring desires. Lame, an up-and-coming young black actress, indulges in hypnosis sessions to cure a gnawing eczema. One is a monster in the making; the other an aspiring actress who realizes that the body she wants to offer and see vibrate in contact with the world is eluding her and putting her in danger. The two trajectories juxtapose until they collide.

" Once you open this book, you won't be able to put it down, so intense is the suspense." Arnaud Laporte, Producer of the TV show "Comme un samedi".

(Re)listen to Séphora Pondi in Comme un samedi by Arnaud Laporte

• Laura Vazquez, Les Forces - Éditions du Sous-sol

It's the story of a girl who disagrees with the social order. Are our faces images, storefronts? Has our attention become property, like land? Has something broken inside us? From childhood to writing, via a mysterious bar, an abandoned house, a building full of cults, or a mountaintop, the narrator takes us on an odyssey strewn with Homeric mirrors, aedic songs that show us the book in the making.

" It's a book that has a lot of effect, and I mean physical effect, when you read it. It's funny and moving, and you get as attached to the narrator as you do hate her. It's an apprenticeship novel in the classic sense of the word: it's about a child moving towards adulthood, with all the discoveries that can be made at that age. Except that it's written in a new, unheard-of language. It's a language that makes you want to speak it, because there's a lot of orality in it. You can feel all the percussion of his phrases as a poet. Marie Sorbier, Producer of the program "Le Point culture".

(Re)listen to Laura Vazquez in Le Book Club.