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The 8th
Franco-Irish Literary Festival,
organised by the Alliance Française
Dublin and the
Cultural Service of the French Embassy,
will be held on the 27th,
28th and
29th April 2007
in the Coach House and the Chester Beatty Library, both situated in
Dublin Castle.
Our partners this year are the Goethe-Institut
Dublin, the
Austrian Embassy,
the Instituto Cervantes
and the Délégation Générale du Québec à
Londres. We have also had the
invaluable support of Ireland Fund of
France, the
Arts Council,
Culture Ireland,
Foras Na Gaeilge,
Poetry Ireland,
the Irish Writers’ Centre,
Dublin City Council,
Ireland Literature Exchange,
the Irish Times,
the Irish Eyes,
several companies and, of course, the academic members of the
Festival Committee.
The Franco-Irish Festival will
once again include writers in the English and Irish languages,
together with writers of the wider francophone world and other
European literatures.
The 2007 Festival
concentrates on the various dimensions of Islands in Literature. The
theme Talking about Islands, A
propos des Iles... will be the
opportunity to pay a warm tribute to
Michel Déon, a famous and prolific
writer, and member of the Académie Française, who has been resident
in Ireland for more than 30 years.
During the three days
of the festival, the different concepts and ideas that “Islands”
bring to mind will be debated by the writers. An
island can be a
utopia, a focus for dreams to build a purer world. Then there is the
idea of the desert island
as an ideal location for meditation and the exploration of self. An
island is
also said to be like a cocoon, helping to preserve customs and
habits through its isolation, but is that very isolation positive or
negative and is it even possible in this era of travel and
globalisation? Islands
can become a sort of melting pot where people come from various
parts of the world, as in Ireland today. But an
island can also
have a darker side and has often been a place of banishment and
exile around the world. Nowadays too, it often faces a problem when
trying to differentiate itself from the mainland. Lastly, we all
have memories of childhood where
islands hold an important place, both
in children’s literature and in our imagination.
For the second time this year, with the help of
Writers in Schools,
some of the participating writers will visit
Teacher Training colleges
to discuss their work and children’s literature with trainee
teachers.
We would like to express our warmest and most sincere thanks to all
our sponsors and patrons without whom a festival of this size and
nature would never be possible.
We look forward to seeing you on the
27th, 28th and 29th April 2007!
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