Winner of this year’s Medicis Prize – nonfiction.

Jakuta Alikavazovic’s sixth book, Comme un ciel en nous, is among this fall’s best reads. Responding to an invitation to contribute a piece of writing to the collection, Ma Nuit au Musée (Stock), she takes the opportunity to explore her unique relationship with the Louvre Museum.

The writer spends the night at France’s most famous museum, and for the first time, away from her son, who is only a couple of months old. She knows this place well, having spent numerous Sunday afternoons there with her father, where he never failed to ask: “And you? How would you go about stealing the Mona Lisa?” Comme un ciel en nous is an homage to this man who was passionate about art and beauty; who fled his country during the war in Yugoslavia; and who wanted to view his exile as a second chance – an opportunity to reinvent himself in the city of his dreams. Comme un ciel en nous is a tribute to this charming and funny father capable of putting himself in the shoes of a child (option 2: capable of taking on a child’s perspective), and who chooses optimism as his religion.
This father’s limitless love forms “comme un ciel en elle” [like a sky in her], and the author seeks to unravel the mystery. Along the way, she returns to this passion that her father instilled in her: this passion for art history – “a ghost story for grown-ups.” Moving and captivating – an immediate must-read!

Comme un ciel en nous by Jakuta Alikavazovic, éditions Stock, Ma nuit au musée.
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Miriam Bridenne

After almost two decades of working in publishing, and a few round trips between Paris and New York, Miriam has decided to settle down at Albertine to do what she enjoys most: recommending books she loves. Somehow this also includes taking bizarre pictures for Albertine's social media outlets.

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