Literary Fall Returns to Villa Albertine in September

The Friday program features a special conversation between Leïla Slimani and Jhumpa Lahiri, alongside sessions on the future of literary translation, co-organized with the Center for the Art of Translation, and new voices in French and Francophone fiction.  

On Saturday, interconnected conversations focus on science fiction, fantasy, comics, and the worldwide booms in romantasy and horror, featuring leading French editors publishing in these genres, as well as bestselling authors John Scalzi and Kate Dramis. 

All events are presented in English. 

Additional speakers to be announced. Please check back for updates. 

The festival will include the following sessions: 

Friday, September 25 

3 PM | The New Landscape of Literary Translation  (Co-organized with the Center for the Art of Translation)

Allison Markin Powell (translator from Japanese who helped draft PEN America’s Manifesto on Literary Translation) and Katrine Øgaard Jensen (poet, translator of Danish literature, and executive director of the American Literary Translators Association) discuss how to support the fragile ecosystem of literary translation, respond to the rise of AI translation, and make translated literature more visible. 

4:30 PM | What French and Francophone Literature Offers the American Imagination 

Since 2008, books translated from French have accounted for 18% of all fiction translations published in the United States, more than those translated from any other language. Miriam Gordis (director of Albertine Books and a former literary scout), Mandana Chaffa (writer, critic, and chair of the National Book Critics Circle’s Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize), and Chad W. Post (publisher of Open Letter Books and founder of Three Percent) discuss the new voices in French and Francophone literature resonating most strongly in the US—and what this literature offers American readers that they may not find elsewhere. 

6 PM | Conversation: An Evening with Leïla Slimani and Jhumpa Lahiri

Leïla Slimani (Goncourt Prize–winning author of The Perfect Nanny) joins Jhumpa Lahiri (Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Namesake and Roman Stories) to discuss Slimani’s new novel, I’ll Take the Fire, translated by Sam Taylor, a provocative coming-of-age story about a young Arab woman’s pursuit of sexual and political freedom. A book signing and reception will follow the conversation. 

Saturday, September 26 

11:30 AM – 12:30 PM | From Moebius to Marvel: How French Comics Helped Shape American Fantasy 

Joseph Montagne (vice president and publisher of Abrams ComicArts) and Fabrice Sapolsky (French comics writer, co-creator of Marvel’s Spider-Man Noir, and founder of FairSquare Graphics) discuss the influence of French comics on American visual storytelling and how artists, ideas, and publishing traditions have traveled between France and the US. 

2 PM – 3 PM | Romantasy Across the Atlantic: A Conversation on the Worldwide Romantasy Boom 

Kate Dramis (bestselling author of The Curse of Saints), Quentin Monstier (editor at J’ai Lu and Dramis’s French editor), and Katy Waldman (staff writer at The New Yorker) discuss the global rise of romantasy and how the genre travels across languages and publishing markets. 

3:30 PM- 4:30 PM | Utopias, Dystopias, and the Politics of Imagination

John Scalzi (Hugo Award–winning author of Redshirts, the Old Man’s War series, and The Shattering Peace), Mathias Echenay (founder and publisher of La Volte, an independent French press specializing in speculative fiction), and Joy Sanchez-Taylor (professor of English at LaGuardia Community College and author of Diverse Futures) discuss how science fiction and fantasy engage with the political crises of the present, warn of dangers ahead, and imagine radical possibilities for the future. 

5 PM – 6 PM | Into the Dark: The New Horror Wave 

Nicolas Martin (journalist, author, and member of the literary programming committee of Les Utopiales, a major international festival of speculative fiction), and Jason Mellow (co-owner of the Brooklyn horror bookstore The Twisted Spine) compare horror’s growing appeal in France and the US and consider where the genre is headed. 

Register for the festival and to receive program updates here.