Edmond de Goncourt born Edmond Louis Antoine Huot de Goncourt, was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 writer, literary critic, art critic

Art critic

An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...

, book publisher and the founder of the Académie Goncourt

Académie Goncourt

The Société littéraire des Goncourt , usually called the académie Goncourt , is a French literary organization based in Paris. It was founded by the French writer and publisher Edmond de Goncourt...

.

Biography

Goncourt was born in Nancy. He bequeathed his entire estate for the foundation and maintenance of the Académie Goncourt. In honour of his brother and collaborator, Jules de Goncourt

Jules de Goncourt

Jules de Goncourt , born Jules Alfred Huot de Goncourt, was a French writer, who published books together with his brother Edmond.- Works :With Edmond de Goncourt:* Sœur Philomène...

, (December 17, 1830 – June 20, 1870), each December since 1903, the Académie awards the Prix Goncourt

Prix Goncourt

The Prix Goncourt is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year"...

. It is the most prestigious prize in French language

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

, given to "the best imaginary prose

Prose

Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...

 work of the year".

Marcel Proust

Marcel Proust

Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...

, Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir

Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir, often shortened to Simone de Beauvoir , was a French existentialist philosopher, public intellectual, and social theorist. She wrote novels, essays, biographies, an autobiography in several volumes, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and...

, Michel Tournier

Michel Tournier

Michel Tournier is a French writer.His works are highly considered and have won important awards such as the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française in 1967 for Friday, or, The Other Island and the Prix Goncourt for The Erl-King in 1970...

, Marguerite Duras

Marguerite Duras

Marguerite Donnadieu, better known as Marguerite Duras was a French writer and film director.-Background:...

 and Romain Gary

Romain Gary

Romain Gary was a French diplomat, novelist, film director, World War II aviator. He is the only author to have won the Prix Goncourt twice .- Early life :Gary was born in Vilnius under the name Roman Kacew...

 (who exceptionally won it twice) are among the best-known authors who have won the century-old prize.

Edmond de Goncourt died in Champrosay in 1896, and was interred in the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris.

Quotes

• "A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world."
• "If there is a God, atheism
  Atheism
  Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
  
   must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion."

External links

• Works by & about Edmond de Goncourt at Internet Archive
  Internet Archive
  The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
  
  (scanned books original editions color illustrated) (plain text and HTML)
• Blog dedicated to Edmond and Jules de Goncourt