in Saint-Malo, the literature festival to discover “unexplored territories” – Liberation

2023-05-28 11:56:44

For its 33rd edition, the international festival focused on travel and in search of new horizons tries to create a bridge between different cultures and artistic genres.

“Collapse of evidence.” This Saturday had started well, in Saint-Malo, before a slight taste of the apocalypse fell on the Palais du Grand Large with this verse by René Char taken up at the inauguration by Jean-Michel Le Boulanger, president of ‘Amazing travelers. But the effervescence immediately took over at the international festival of literature and cinema which is held until Monday at the foot of the ramparts of Saint-Malo.

In 1990, the city hosted the first edition of Etonnants Voyageurs, imagined by Michel Le Bris, former collaborator of Release and former director of the cause of the people. Its goal ? To fight “for a travelling, adventurous literature, concerned with telling the world”. The long weekend of Pentecost becomes the meeting place for the grandchildren of Robert Louis Stevenson and Joseph Conrad. And, many are also linked by the love of poetry programmed since 1997 by Yvon Le Men. For him, the journey is above all interior. “When you read poems at certain times in your life, they have the ability to get you on the train.” Joëlle Losfeld, editor, is also convinced: “Literature is a journey that opens onto the world.” And who undoubtedly sets off in search of the “great outdoors” as Stevenson said or even “towards uncharted territories” according to Maÿlis de Lajugie, editor at Buchet Chastel.

“The Mediterranean is a wall of barbed wire”

At Astonishing Travelers, there has always been this concern to tell the story of tomorrow’s society. Today, it’s war – in Iran, for example – exile with Nasim Marashi or even artificial intelligence, questioned during conferences. There is also that of always reinventing the festival. At the helm for two years, Jean-Michel Le Boulanger has set up several new features: the engine room which explores the mechanics of novels, walks and literary naps. “For the next editions, literature will take up residence in the streets of Saint-Malo to meet those who cannot.”

World literature also means exporting this desire for books elsewhere: to Sarajevo in 2000, to Dublin in 2001, to Bamako from 2001 to 2010, to Port-au-Prince several times. This year, the Irish come for the second time in Saint-Malo, the first meeting dating back to 1996. Quebec and Haiti are also there. The first at home in Quebec; the other through various encounters, notably with Dany Laferrière at Maëtte Chantrel’s literary café. “Amazing travelers is inviting a writer for his work and not for his nationality, says Dany Laferriere. Literature is a privileged space to meet, meet and tell the world. There is also a renewed wish of Jean-Michel Le Boulanger: to create a bridge between the different cultures and artistic genres at the time “where the Mediterranean is a wall of barbed wire”, go beyond it to invite you on an astonishing journey where you least expect it.

50,000 visitors expected

Thus the comic book report was honored during the professional day on Friday. This journalistic genre, far from literature, also tells the world, without fiction only by drawing the real. On this graphic terrain, you have to step aside to enhance the encounters that gradually weave “true stories” according to Taïna Tervonen, journalist-author. “Reality must be heard through these meetings which rarely have access to speech”, also said Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, on video from Nice, during the inauguration. And for that, it takes time – that of travel and writing for “contradicting oneself, backtracking or even getting used to the language”.

Although Brittany is often perceived as the end of the world, at Etonnants Voyageurs, solitude is rare. The 50,000 expected visitors must arm themselves with patience to finally see Douglas Kennedy under the marquee of the book fair or discover other authors and books. Paradoxical with regard to the poster of this thirty-third edition: the illustrator Miles Hyman seems to be inspired by solitude à la Edward Hopper, that which one encounters in the evening in a bar or at dawn in a room. A woman in a green raincoat and a red hat sits on a train. We do not know her direction, probably that of the book she holds in her hands. And the time of three days to become an “astonishing traveler”, that of the verses of Charles Baudelaire, the inspiration for the Malouin meeting. “Amazing travelers! What noble stories / We read in your deep eyes like the seas! / Show us the caskets of your rich memories, / These marvelous jewels, made of stars and ethers.”

Amazing Travelersuntil Monday, May 29, in Saint-Malo.