From Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse to Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, James Joyce's The Dead to Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain—Shakespeare and Company says the novella, a "small but perfectly-formed" literary object, "holds an important place in literature." The Paris bookstore known for its support of aspiring writers recently launched its first Paris Literary Prize [2] to promote the form in contemporary practice.

One writer who has not published a novel, novella, or short story collection will receive an award of ten thousand euros, cosponsored by the recently established de Groot Foundation, and a weekend stay in Paris next June, during which the award will be presented. Two runners-up will also receive a weekend trip to the city of lights.

The deadline for the first three thousand words of a manuscript is December 1, and submissions must be accompanied by an entry fee of fifty euros (approximately sixty-five dollars). Finalists, announced next February, will be asked to submit their complete manuscripts (of twenty- to thirty-thousand words) by March 20, 2011.

Guidelines and more information about how to enter are available on the Paris Literary Prize Web site [3].

In the video below, the luminous Jean Seberg dances with melancholy in Otto Preminger's film adaptation of Bonjour Tristesse (Hello Sadness), accompanied by the English version of the film's eponymous song.