From March 8 to 12, the annual literary festival Effractions was held at the Center Pompidou, devoted to the ferment of reality through the prism of contemporary fiction. About forty French and international authors took part in the debates and meetings, which were often exciting and passionate.
The curtain fell this Sunday on the 4th edition of the literary festival Break-ins organized by the Public Information Library (BPI) of the Center Pompidou, in Paris. Having become an unmissable literary event in the capital, the festival returned, for five afternoons and evenings, to the works published during the 2022-2023 editorial year and the themes addressed by their authors. The subjects range from ecology to wars, via societal themes relating in particular to the world of work.
The festival gave the floor this year to some forty authors, including some first-time novelists, but also to several recognized authors such as Brigitte Giraud, Marie Ndiaye, Lola Lafon or Marie-Hélène Lafon, who, in the context of major interviews, evoked the place of reality in their work. Among the other great French-speaking names present at the Pompidou Center this weekend, let us quote pell-mell Mathieu Belezi, Makenzy Orcel, Eric Faye and Sorj Chalandon.
In line with the identity of the BPI
Thinking about the link between literature and reality, such is the mission assigned to this Parisian festival, as its name reminds us : Burglary – real/fiction. ” Contemporary Literature Festival, Break-ins highlights works and authors who take on this bubbling matter that is reality, explains Blandine Fauré, head of literary programming at the BPI. When creating the festival four years ago, we wanted it to be consistent with our identity at the BPI, which is a library focused on literary news. It echoes the iconic Cinéma du réel festival that the Center Pompidou has been organizing for almost 45 years. “.
But the real comes in different ways, depending on the authors and sensitivities. It is intimate and introspective in the work of Brigitte Giraud, Prix Goncourt 2022, who opened the new edition ofBreak-ins. The real coexists with the strange and the fantastic in the pages of Marie Ndiaye, it spans time and continents in the work of the Haitian Mackenzie Orcel, it is political and denunciatory in the story of flight and hopes that tells the Iranian Nasim Marashi or even historical in the trilogy that Mathieu Belezi devotes to colonization in Algeria, told through the prism of rape and violence… “ By our choice of guests, representatives of the literature of reality in the spotlight at this festival, we wanted to explore these different approaches and give to see and hear the thousand shades of contemporary realism. adds Blandine Fauré.
Between grace and hope
Taking stock of the 2023 edition ofBreak-insthe organizers pride themselves on having succeeded in creating an event that attracts the public, many of whom came once again this year to meet the authors, ” despite the public transport strike “. There were no cancellations, as one would expect in times of major social unrest that France has been experiencing for a few weeks.
The general public’s interest in this literary event unlike any other is no doubt also explained by its original programming, distributing the debates according to formulas as varied as they are dynamic. The meetings with the authors are declined according to five axes: a writer dialoguing with a specialist of another discipline around the central subject of his work in “Collusions”, the axis “Crossed Regards” which brings together authors inspired by a similar theme , “Excavation site” devoted to the pre-text and documentation, “The writer’s press review” which questions the author’s relationship to the news and the press, and finally, the axis ” Aloud” which plays representative excerpts from the text presented.
The readings are particularly popular with the CPI audience. Spectators will long remember the reading of extracts from Mathieu Belezi’s novel by actor Charles Berling, making the rage, despair and hope of the colonized heard. It was a real moment of grace, as there have been a few others. In particular the meeting, within the framework of a great interview, with the unforgettable Marie Ndiaye commenting on the first sentences of her novels, and evoking the origins of her fiction and her concern for ” give all the characters a chance “. Enthusiastic was also the debate between the essayist of the sun Emma Carenini and the novelist Miguel Bonnefoy, author of the fictionalized biography of the first inventor of the system of exploitation of solar energy, a debate located resolutely at the crossroads of philosophy, the history and writing.
For many spectators, the most significant meeting of this edition was the one with the Iranian Nasim Marahi whose novel Autumn is the last season (Zulma) recounts the contradictions of Iranian society, the dream of its revolutionaries and freedom on the horizon. Between grace and hope !