The Nice Book Festival 2013 will be held on the coming 7th, 8th, and 9th of June. Novelists, essayists, poets, and Francophones from around the world—more than 250 writers will be present in Nice this year under the presidency of Mr. Amin MAALOUF of the French Academy.
Signings, debates, meetings, activities, and readings will punctuate these three days, exceptionally held in the historical setting of old Nice (place du Palais de Justice and place Pierre Gauthier near the famous Cours Saleya and its flower market).
The County of Nice has successively belonged to Provence, Savoy, and Piedmont before being attached to France first from 1792 to 1814, and then definitively in 1860. Except for the loss and reconquest of Alsace and Lorraine, it is the last continental territory to join the Nation. Thus, integrating a language and literature, Nice becomes the youngest Francophone city. What could be more natural than the theme chosen for this year?
Next September, Nice will represent France and host the upcoming Francophonie Games, bringing together nearly 3,000 young people from five continents, Heads of State, and delegations from participating nations.
Just months before this exceptional event, the Book Festival kicks off the cultural festivities of “Nice 2013, capital of Francophonie”.
Today, the planet counts 220 million Francophones, with 96.2 million in Africa alone. French is the 9th most spoken language in the world!
Arabic is his mother tongue, but it is in French that he writes. Amin Maalouf left Lebanon for France in 1976 during the civil war. His first book, a historical essay, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, was published in 1983 by JC Lattès. Three years later, his novel Leo Africanus (JC Lattès) really made him known to the public. Goncourt Prize winner in 1993 for The Rock of Tanios (Grasset), he is the head of a body of work deeply imbued with humanism and tolerance. He was elected on June 23, 2011, to the 9th chair of the French Academy.
“My homeland is the French language,” Albert Camus used to say, whose centenary of birth is celebrated this year.
The Rwandan Scholastique Mukasonga, Renaudot Prize 2012 for Our Lady of the Nile, the Lebanese poet Salah Stétié, the Danish novelist Pia Petersen, and all Algerian, Belgian, Canadian, Egyptian, Spanish, Iranian, Russian, Senegalese, Swiss, writers from all countries and continents who will be at this year’s Nice Book Festival could echo this statement.
Magnificent debates in view.
