The award

A parable of the corporate world, The Award takes place at a ceremony in a massive automobile factory. One by one, speakers step up to the podium. A company officer introduces each award recipient with a short speech on his or her merits. Then, the winner makes a short speech of acceptance. But The Award's is a ceremony unlike any other. Each presentation becomes a minibiography of the worker and executive concerned; each speech becomes a short story told in the first-person - sometimes tragic, often very funny. And as the speeches/short stories progress, the reader learns there is a growing chorus of striking workers outside the auditorium who threaten to descend on the proceedings... Lydie Salvayre lampoons the blind obedience of both the workers and their bosses, and in the course of doing so questions the primitive hierarchy of the business world.