Gaël Octavia

Gaël Octavia (born 29 December 1977 in Fort-de-France, Martinique), is a French writer and playwright. She is also a film director and painter. In May 2025, she was awarded the Prix Goncourt de la nouvelle for her collection of short stories,

Biography Gaël Octavia grew up on a council estate in Schœlcher, where she was greatly influenced by her parents. Her mother would tell the story of Octavia's grandmother, who fell in love with a married man. When he died, she was left alone to raise her children, destitute and excluded. This family story captivated Gaël Octavia, who retold it in Ma Parole. After studying at the Lycée Victor-Schœlcher, she obtained her baccalaureate in 1995 and left Martinique to settle in Paris to study. She studied at the lycée Fénelon in Paris and then at a prestigious engineering school.

After graduating with a degree in engineering, she worked in telecommunications. In 2002, she started writing for Tangente, a popular mathematics magazine. She also became head of communications for Fondation Sciences Mathématiques de Paris.

Gaël Octavia's abilities blend the mathematical and the artistic. Her favourite means of expression are painting, film making, and above all, literary writing.

Writing While being influenced by Martinique, Gaël Octavia's writing deals with broad issues: the family, the status of women, social exclusion and migration.

Cultural organisations working to promote Caribbean theatre recognised Octavia's work early on. In 2003, actor Greg Germain chose her first play, , for a reading in his theatre at the in Avignon. The following year, , another play, was selected by the reading committee of , an association based in Guadeloupe working to promote contemporary Caribbean theatrical writing. In 2005, , a portrait of a power-seeking but conflicted politician, was broadcast on RFO Martinique under the title "". Gaël Octavia's plays have been staged in France, Democratic Republic of the Congo, across the West Indies and in the United States.

In 2009, her first book, , was published by the New York publisher RivartiCollection.

The first of her plays to be staged, , is a story told between a fisherman and the young man working for him, the third character being the fisherman's wife, who never appears. It was premiered in 2010 by the Guadeloupean director Dominik Bernard, as part of the first edition of the Festival. After a tour of the Caribbean, in Guadeloupe, Haiti, Martinique and Guyana, the play was performed during the 2011 Avignon Festival, before being published the following year by Lansman, under the Etc Caraibe label. , a dialogue between a soldier and his mother, was premiered in 2017 by Luc Clémentin at the Scène nationale de Martinique, Tropiques Atrium, and was performed in Martinique, Guadeloupe, Paris and Reunion. is a story of four women narrated by Aline, a home care nurse just returned to her neighbourhood, after fleeing it seven years before. It won the prix Wepler in 2017. It has been said that in her two novels, she dismantles the myth of the poto mitan, the woman as pillar of Martinique society, saying herself of the idea: "culpabilise les femmes et dédouane les hommes", that it places a burden of responsibility on women, while exculpating men.

was premiered in 2020 by Abdon Fortuné Koumbha at the Centre Culturel Municipal Jean Gagnant, in Limoges, as part of their autumn theatre festival. In December 2021, her work was performed in English as Family at Molière in the Park, an outdoor theatre festival held in Prospect Park, a "dream-like" play of a closeted husband and wife, trapped by their need to keep up appearances.

In May 2025, she was awarded the Goncourt Prize for a collection of short stories, , Paris, , 2020

Plays

2003 : (unpublished) 2004 : (unpublished text): reading on the radio station, RFO Martinique in January 2005 2009 : 2008 : (unpublished): Special mention from the jury of the ETC_Caraïbes/Association Beaumarchais-SACD competition in 2009 2012 : 2012 : , radio drama premiered on Guadeloupe Première 2014 : 2014 : (unpublished): Finaliste du Prix des Inédits d'Afrique et Outremer (Prix lycéen de littérature dramatique francophone) 2016 2017 : Grizzly (unpublished): Finalist in the competition for the Prix Annick Lansman 2018 2020 :

Short fiction

2013 : , in , , 2013, free download from iTunes 2014 : , in revue no. 3, 2014 2015 : , in , edited by Léonora Miano. 2017 : , in , anthology edited by Nicole Cage, Cimarron Editions 2018 : , in no. 630, May 2018, Gallimard, 2018 : , in , Sépia/K. Editions 2020 : , in no. 5, 2020 2021 : , in no. 646, January 2021, Gallimard 2025 : L'étrangeté de Mathilde T., Gallimard: Continents noirs.

Poetry

2013 : , in the journal no.1, K.Editions, 2013, 2014 : , in the journal no. 4, K.Editions, 2014, 2018 : , , and other poems, in the journal no. 2, Khartala, May 2018,

Filmography Short films

2006 : (14 min; script writer, filmmaker and editor). 2007 : (6 min 46 s; script writer, filmmaker and editor), with cast: Vincent Byrd-Lesage, Lydie Selebran, Mike Ibrahim, Don Pablo, Franck Salin… 2008 : (6 min 08 s; script writer, filmmaker and editor), avec Isabelle Mayeko et Raphaël Lévy. 2009 : Cocktail (8 min 40 s; script writer and filmmaker), with cast: Vincent Byrd-Lesage, Caroline Rochefort, Céline Creux-Thomas, Véronique Sambin.

Prizes and awards

2009 : Special mention from the jury of the ETC_Caraïbes/Association Beaumarchais-SACD competition in 2009, for 2013 : Prix du meilleur texte francophone Etc Caraïbes/Association Beaumarchais-SACD, for 2016 : Finalist in the (High school prize for French-language dramatic literature), for 2017 : Prix Wepler, Special mention from the jury, for La fin de Mame Baby 2017 : Finalist in the Prix Carbet de la Caraïbe, for 2018 : Finalist in the Prix Annick Lansman, for Grizzly 2018 : Finalist in the Prix Jeune Mousquetaire du Premier Roman, for 2018 : Finalist in the Prix Régine Deforges, for