Litquake 2026 with Villa Albertine San Francisco

Join Villa Albertine San Francisco at Litquake, San Francisco’s annual literary festival, for two events celebrating the breadth, craft, and intellectual ambition of contemporary French literature.

As part of Litquake’s Words Around the World showcase, these conversations bring French writers and their work into dialogue with Bay Area audiences, creating opportunities to explore new perspectives on identity, belonging, speculative worlds, and the human experience. From Jean-Baptiste Phou’s thoughtful examination of queer identity and the Asian diaspora to Alain Damasio’s visionary science fiction, the program highlights the power of literature to challenge assumptions, expand our imaginations, and open new avenues for cultural exchange. Through these encounters between authors, translators, and readers, Villa Albertine continues to foster meaningful intellectual exchange between France and San Francisco, celebrating the artistry of the written word and the creative connections that emerge across languages and cultures.

Jean Baptiste Phou: Coming out of my Skin  
Saturday October 17^th, 2026 
7:00 – 8:30pm  
Telegraph Hill Books 
More information and registration here

Having grown up as a Cambodian immigrant in France, Jean-Baptiste Phou has long explored the challenges and contradictions of the Asian diaspora experience throughout his artistic career. However, up until now, he’s always been careful not to raise issues of sexuality—in particular, his homosexuality. In his recent memoir, Coming Out of My Skin, the artist shifts his focus to examining the role his ethnic origin has played in the construction of his sexual identity and his romantic relationships in a predominantly white environment. An astute observer of the various ways in which his body has been perceived, Phou asks: how does a marginalized person develop emotionally and build, reclaim, and express their sexuality? How does this inform the experience of a queer Asian person navigating predominantly white cultural spaces? In conversation with César Cadabes, Artistic Director for the GLBTQ Asian Pacific Alliance (GAPA) Theatre. Doors at 6:30pm 

Alain Damasio: Horde of the Counterwind 
Tuesday October 20^th, 2026 
7:00 – 8:30pm 
Telegraph Hill Books 
 More information and registration here

In 2004, Alain Damasio’s Horde of the Counterwind: An Epic Voyage to the Upper Reaches gained acclaim as France’s genre-defining sci-fi odyssey of the 21st century, inspiring the celebrated video game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and igniting the imaginations of millions around the world. Now, this seminal work appears in English translation for the very first time, offering even more readers the opportunity to experience a masterpiece of epic scope and visionary world-building in which twenty-three adventurers climb endlessly against the wind that plagues their desolate homeland. Their only purpose: identifying the mysterious source where eight centuries of past climbers have tried and failed. Join Damasio and Horde’s English translator, Alexander Dickow, for a conversation moderated by award-winning writer and translator Edward Gauvin. Doors at 6:30pm.