The Prix de Mai was a short-lived French literary award, founded by Alain Robbe-Grillet

Alain Robbe-Grillet

Alain Robbe-Grillet , was a French writer and filmmaker. He was, along with Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor and Claude Simon, one of the figures most associated with the Nouveau Roman trend. Alain Robbe-Grillet was elected a member of the Académie française on March 25, 2004, succeeding Maurice...

 and first awarded to Moderato Cantabile

Moderato Cantabile

Moderato Cantabile is a novel by Marguerite Duras. It was very popular, selling half a million copies and being the initial source of Duras's fame.-Plot:...

by Marguerite Duras

Marguerite Duras

Marguerite Donnadieu, better known as Marguerite Duras was a French writer and film director.-Background:...

 in 1958.

The jury included Georges Bataille

Georges Bataille

Georges Bataille was a French writer. His multifaceted work is linked to the domains of literature, anthropology, philosophy, economy, sociology and history of art...

, Maurice Blanchot

Maurice Blanchot

Maurice Blanchot was a French writer, philosopher, and literary theorist. His work had a strong influence on post-structuralist philosophers such as Jacques Derrida.-Works:...

, Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes

Roland Gérard Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism, anthropology and...

, Marthe Robert, Dominique Aury.

Subsequent prizes went to such works as Le traître, (The traitor) by André Gorz

André Gorz

André Gorz , pen name of Gérard Horst, born Gerhard Hirsch, also known by his pen name Michel Bosquet, was an Austrian and French social philosopher. Also a journalist, he co-founded Le Nouvel Observateur weekly in 1964...

, La Gana by Fred Deux (under pseudonym Jean Douassot), and Je

JE

JE is a hypothetical intermediate source text of the Torah postulated by the DH. It is a combination and redaction of the Jahwist and Elohist source texts. According to this hypothesis, J was composed c. 950 BC, E was composed c. 850 BC, and the two were combined into JE c. 750 BC. JE was...

by Yves Velan (1960), which did not meet with popular success, and the prize disappeared in short order.