Yannick Haenel wins the Femina with a novel about the desire to teach
La solitude des professeurs est infinie, published by Gallimard, follows a young teacher entering a secondary school in the Paris suburbs.
Yannick Haenel has won the 2026 Prix Femina with La solitude des professeurs est infinie, published by Gallimard. The result was announced in Paris on 4 November. The novel follows Jean Deichel, the writer’s recurring alter ego, as he begins teaching at a secondary school in Mantes-la-Jolie. School experience becomes fiction through lessons, readings and daily encounters with pupils and the institution, without reducing the classroom to a simple social backdrop. Haenel had also reached the final selections for the Goncourt and the Académie française Grand Prix du Roman. The Femina jury additionally honoured Laura Kasischke in the foreign novel category and Jennifer Tamas for nonfiction.