Led by Christian Michel, this special edition of the Café Philo will be the occasion to discuss the legacy of May 68 and its commemorations today, starting with the question: “Was the May 68 movement elitist, anti-populist and anti-democratic?”

Beyond Words Festival
10.30pm £2

Performance

In a special live performance, Véronique Aubouy heroically attempts to sum up the whole story of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time for her audience in just an hour. Fascinated by this extraordinary novel, one of France’s favourite books of all time, Véronique is able to bring to stage the complex world and characters’s of this intricate plot: whether you have read the book or not, prepare to spend an hour exploring its world. Introduced by Christopher Prendergast (King’s College Cambridge).

Beyond Words Festival
7.30pm £7, conc. £5

Talk

Goncourt Prize-winning Lullaby (Faber) is a compulsive, riveting and bravely observed exploration of power, class, race, domesticity and motherhood. Join its author Leïla Slimani, a journalist, writer, and a frequent commentator on women’s and human rights, who is also a prominent advocate for francophone language and culture.

Beyond Words Festival
6.15pm £7, conc. £5

Talk

‘All the characters have a close relationship with words - the words they read, the words they speak and finally the words of love.’ Waterstones Book of the Month in 2016, The Reader on the 6:27 has been a big success in France and in the UK. Its author, Jean-Paul Didierlaurent will be in conversation with Ann Morgan, from the blog Reading the World, and translator Ros Schwartz.

Beyond Words Festival
5pm £7, conc. £5

Staged Reading

Ibou, a Malian stowaway hanging on to the landing gear of an Airbus A320 heading for Paris, is talking to us about his future, and his hopes. About Bamako. About his mother. The Djelibougou dump. The Black Autumn Riots. A burning topic of our time, handled with solemnity and humour. Staged reading of Ian Soliane’s play Bamako Paris (translated by Felicity Davidson) as part of the Institut français’ Cross-Channel Theatre programme, directed by Kimberley Sykes, with Clifford Samuel.

Beyond Words Festival
2pm £7, conc. £5

Talk

Pierre Senges is known for his radio adaptation of Gustave Flaubert’s Bouvard et Pécuchet, as well as for for his quirky, poetic Lichtenberg Fragments (Dalkey Archive). He, Noemi Lefebvre and Quebec-born Hélène Frédérick are some of the up and coming writers of the Verticales list, who share a radical approach to narrative and document. Conversations with the writers will be accompanied by a series of readings on realism, literary debt and new forms of writing, introduced by Emmanuel Bouju (IUF) and Jeanne Guyon (Verticales).

Beyond Words Festival
7.30pm £7, conc. £5

Talk

Noémi Lefebvre’s Blue Self-Portrait (Les Fugitives) is a novel of angst and high farce, caught between contrary impulses to remember and to ignore. She will be in conversation with Baileys Prize for Women’s fiction winner Eimear McBride, whose latest novel is The Lesser Bohemians (Faber). Chaired by translator Sophie Lewis.

Beyond Words Festival
6.30pm - 7.30pm £7, conc. £5

Talk and Screening

Talented French publisher and film director Paul Otchakovsky-Laurens, founder of P.O.L, disappeared in January 2018. Writer and translator Frédéric Boyer, Goncourt prize winner Atiq Rahimi and Medicis prize winner Marie Darrieussecq and guests will take part in a series of readings of the books he published. Followed by an exceptional screening, in French, of P.O.L.’s film Editeur.

Beyond Words Festival
8pm £7, conc. £5

Talk

In Being Here Is Everything (Semiotext(e)) Marie Darrieussecq traces the short, obscure, and prolific life of the German expressionist painter Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907), who despite being a woman became one of her generation’s preeminent artists. In this exceptional London appearance, Marie Darrieussecq will also be talking about her other books, including Pig Tales (Faber).

Beyond Words Festival
7pm £7, conc. £5

Talk

Writer and filmmaker, Atiq Rahimi won the 2008 Goncourt Prize for The Patience Stone (Penguin), his first book to be written directly in French, as a way to escape the “involuntary self-censorship” he feels when writing in Persian. The novel portrays a young woman's attempt to keep her husband alive as she rages against men, war, culture, God. Atiq Rahimi has since continued to write about language, political violence, historical belonging and migration.

Beyond Words Festival
6pm £7, conc. £5

Institut français