From May 24 to 29, the sixth edition of the “Oh les beaux jours!” literary festival will be held. A hundred national and international writers will take over Marseille for readings, debates and concerts.
Christine Angot, Andreï Kourkov, Patrick Chamoiseau: for his 6and edition, the festival “Oh beautiful days!” welcomes from Tuesday in Marseilles big names in French and international literature, but also promising authors, for six days of “literary friction”.
“These are frictions that the authors can maintain themselves with their texts because they are very often asked to come and read them aloud”explained Fabienne Pavia, co-director of this festival which is part of the development plan for public reading voted by the city of Marseille in 2016.
There will also be “friction with music” or “friction with the disciplines since we like to mix literature with science” and “we also rub shoulders with comics, with images”she completed during the presentation of the event.
Nearly a hundred authors and artists will be present during some 50 meetings, readings and shows organized in five emblematic cultural places in Marseille: the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations (Mucem), the Criée theater , the Alcazar library, the Pierre Barbizet conservatory and the History Museum.
International artists
In addition to major interviews with renowned authors – Christine Angot, the Turkish writer Elif Shafak or even the Martinican author Patrick Chamoiseau, winner of the 1992 Goncourt prize for Texacothe festival also offers meetings with authors less familiar to the French public who depict the excesses of our world.
“Political drifts – there is a lot of talk about authoritarianism, populism which even lead us to war -, ecological drifts, climatic drifts and then also drifts caused by digital cultures”detailed Ms. Pavia.
The latter are mentioned in particular by Hanna Bervoets, a Dutch author who in her first novel translated into French, “The Things We Have Seen”, published by the young Marseille publishing house Le Bruit du Monde, tells the daily life of web content moderators. The text will be read by actress Anna Mouglalis.
The young Ecuadorian author Monica Ojeda, will come for her part to talk about Jawsa work which, according to Nadia Champesme, co-director of the festival, “stripping everything”.
Another big red thread of the festival, the music will resonate through a multitude of proposals: the opening evening where five authors, on the rhythms of Albin de la Simone, will lead us in songs in the shower, a “story-story” by Pascal Quignard or even a very jazzy “chaos opera” around Baudelaire.
Full program here.