The network of municipal libraries with regional vocation offers this year an extremely varied and unifying program under the new direction of Isabelle Dimondo.
Two major events will enliven the year 2024 throughout the city’s library network. This was one of the goals of Isabelle Dimondo, newly appointed as director of the regional purpose library in Nice: to encompass all these cultural places and their users around the same project and thus make the program more comprehensible.
From January to April 2024, around the theme of “Let’s Play”, the libraries invite the public to play, talk about games, make games, and read about games. “The game which was rediscovered during the Covid-19 crisis and confinement,” she highlights. Exhibitions, workshops, and readings will be offered.
Starting in June, it will be around “Reveries and Artist Books” to unite all the city’s libraries. Exhibitions, theater performances, meetings and music, creative happenings, and artist book creations will animate this event.
“Daydreaming is a very important moment in everyone’s life. We think of children’s dreams and less often of adults’ dreams, which are nevertheless necessary to continue living in harmony with the society in which we currently live,” she assures.
Welcoming “from infants to the elderly”
The management attaches importance to welcoming an audience that sometimes struggles to cross the threshold of a library. The cultural offer thus targets a very broad audience, regular attendees or amateurs, “from infants to the elderly, those in good health as well as the sick, those confined and those with troubles as well as those who are well, those who come with family and those who are isolated.” For Isabelle Dimondo, the main goal remains “the accessibility of knowledge.”
Some monthly events that have become essential continue to exist. Such is the case of “Literary Thursdays” led by Aurélie Gubernattis, who will notably welcome Gilles Paris on October 12th. He will present The 7 Lives of Mademoiselle Belle Kaplan, published by Plan editions.
But also “Nice and You”, the Tuesday meetings at the Raoul Mille library. It’s an opportunity to talk about Nice, its history, heritage, literature, and culture in a literary café atmosphere. A monthly event in partnership with the Association of Publishers Alpes-Côte d’Azur and the Association of Booksellers of Nice. October is dedicated to Nice’s crime novels.
Fighting Illiteracy
The prevention of illiteracy advocated in Nice by Jean-Luc Gagliolo is an integral part of the 2023/2024 season, notably with the Reading for All scheme, implemented in 2008. It offers a varied audience, from students to hospitalized people or even those in prison, the opportunity to discover reading through encounters with writers.
“Illiteracy is a true societal scourge, which genuinely hinders a human being from developing and being fully realized in both childhood and adult life,” states Isabelle Dimondo. This year, nearly 3,500 students from 43 schools were able to participate in these moments of encounter and exchange around books.
Among the expected guests for this new season are writers such as René Frégni and Franz-Olivier Giesbert, and many authors specializing in youth literature such as Gary Ghislain, Marion Brunet, Estelle Faye, Jean Christophe Tixier, Séverine Vidal, and Florence Hinckel. Actors like Max Boublil, Guillaume Nail, and Pascal Elbé are also part of the program.
Youth Short Story Contest and Students’ Book Prize, Continuing Operations
Still promoting reading and writing, the youth short story contest, chaired by writer Didier van Cauwelaert, returns. The themes proposed to students always revolve around Nice. This year, schoolchildren will have to work on: “A Birth at Phoenix Park.”
“Our goal is to anchor the writing of these children and teenagers in their territory so that they can further embrace the place and create around these locations,” explains the deputy mayor responsible for education, books, and the fight against illiteracy.
The Youth Book Prize of Nice Students is renewed this year for a second edition. Four books, selected by the independent booksellers of Nice and offered by the city, are proposed to students in grades CM1, CM2, and 6e. Their mission: to read them all in three months and choose the author they wish to reward.
