Prix Médicis Essai 2021 

Responding to an invitation to contribute a piece of writing to the collection, Ma Nuit au Musée (Stock), Jakuta Alikavazovic spent one night the Caryatids room in the Antiques section of the Louvre Museum. In this personal, original book full of nocturnal shadows and ghosts of the past, she quickly clarifies her intention: "I came here tonight to be my father's daughter again».

The book is a homage to this man passionate about art and beauty who fled his country during the war in Yugoslavia and was told that his daughter would never speak French properly because he kept speaking to her in his own language, but  who wanted to view his exile as a second chance. Drawing on many afternoons spent together in the Louvre during which he would regularly ask her how she would go about stealing the Mona Lisa, Jakuta Alikavazovic pays a beautiful tribute to this fascinating father in this moving and captivating book.