Charlotte Casiraghi, 40, is enjoying an especially memorable year, filled with major milestones and meaningful moments. A lifelong lover of literature, Princess Caroline of Monaco’s middle child published her first solo book in January, La fêlure (The Crack, or The Fissure), one of her most ambitious and personal projects to date.
“It should be seen as a journey, a series of variations on a single theme,” her publisher said ahead of its release, explaining that readers would encounter “the recurring motif of a fixed idea: if something within us is broken, so much the better.”
© HandoutCharlotte Casiraghi Receives Her First Literary Award
Nearly nine months after the book’s release, Charlotte has received her first literary award. Last Friday, she traveled to Lumio, Corsica, for the 16th edition of the E Statinate festival, where she was the guest of honor. The event celebrates literature and wine over three evenings.
© Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty ImagesCharlotte was recognized for her first solo book, published by Julliard. During the festival’s opening ceremony, Lumio Mayor Etienne Suzzoni and Marie-France Bereni Canazzi, president of Musanostra, presented her with the Musa Nostra Award. Each year, the prize honors distinguished authors writing in Corsican and French.
“Thank you from the bottom of my heart. This is the first award I’ve received for this book, and I think Corsica brings me good luck,” she said onstage at the Edmond-Simeoni Cultural Center, according to Point de Vue.
© Best Image/The Grosby Group“It means a great deal to me to receive an award like this because it’s given from the heart,” she continued. Charlotte then reflected on the connection between her book and the French island where she received the honor.
“The book talks a great deal about ‘navigating the fissure,’ about facing the waves, but also about taking risks and venturing to the edge of that fissure. Here in Corsica, we’re very close to all of that, to that relationship with the sea and its unpredictability, as well as the unpredictability of the winds and currents. I wanted to draw that little parallel with my book. Thank you very much,” she concluded.
Why Corsica Holds a Special Place in Charlotte Casiraghi’s Heart
Corsica has long held a special place in Charlotte’s life. She and her then-husband, Dimitri Rassam, chose the beaches of Bonifacio for the second leg of their honeymoon in the summer of 2019, two months after marrying in Monaco.
© AFP via Getty ImagesCharlotte has also spent summers on the French island for years. The Grimaldi family owns properties on nearby Cavallo Island, a small Mediterranean paradise that has served as the backdrop for many memorable chapters in Charlotte’s life and her family’s history.
Inside Charlotte Casiraghi’s Passion for Literature
Along with horseback riding and fashion, literature is one of Charlotte’s greatest passions. Philosophy is another. She studied the subject at the Sorbonne in Paris, one of the world’s most prestigious universities, and graduated in 2007.
© REX Features/Shutterstock /The Grosby GroupAmong the writers she considers essential are French literary figures such as Colette and Simone de Beauvoir, as well as Charles Baudelaire. Speaking to Elle about The Flowers of Evil, one of Baudelaire’s best-known works, Charlotte said, “He’s been with me since I was a teenager; I still have that copy filled with my notes.” She added, “He taught me that what is broken can become an opening onto truth and beauty.”
Charlotte also shared other books that changed the way she sees the world, including Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, which she called “another pivotal book,” and Robert Graves’s Good-Bye to All That. She read the latter “when I was 15, and it transformed the way I saw war.”
© Getty ImagesThe Inspiration Behind Charlotte Casiraghi’s La fêlure
© Corbis via Getty ImagesSpeaking to Elle about La fêlure, Charlotte explained the idea at the heart of the book: “I wanted to explore that tension between what breaks us and what, at the same time, becomes an entry point for creativity. We all have cracks, and without them there is no story. It isn’t about glorifying suffering but about recognizing that sometimes wounds open up possibilities for transformation.”
© Getty ImagesThe book is a deeply sensitive exploration of “the notion of cracks,” the idea behind its title. It draws on the writings and lives of authors, poets and adventurers, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, a major source of inspiration for Charlotte, as well as Anna Akhmatova, Bernard Moitessier, Ingeborg Bachmann, Colette and Marguerite Duras.
In La fêlure, Casiraghi “examines this inner vanishing point that threatens us and, perhaps at the same time, offers us a tremendous opportunity: to grasp something of what flows through us as we live.”
After months of work and the deeply personal process of putting her thoughts on life, motherhood and the world into words, Charlotte now has another milestone to celebrate. Her first solo book has earned her first literary award.
