Lumières de Livres is a festival which takes place from October 4 to 5 in the most beautiful places in the city of Amiens. The theme chosen: “Duty of Memory”. Meeting with Yacoub Abdellatif, artistic director of this first Amiens literary event. A face well known to world music fans for Voyage au coeur de l’été which celebrated its twenty years of existence this year, and attracts a large audience every year in July.
The essentials of the day: our exclusive selection
Every day, our editorial team reserves the best regional news for you. A selection just for you, to stay in touch with your regions.
France Télévisions uses your email address to send you the newsletter “Today’s essentials: our exclusive selection”. You can unsubscribe at any time via the link at the bottom of this newsletter. Our privacy policy
“Memory is a wealth to pass on, it is not a burden“, for Yacoub Abdellattif, cultural attaché for the city of Amiens and linchpin of this unique event, which will bring together nearly sixty authors from all walks of life. “The idea is to invest the high places of the Republic on the occasion of this first festival: the Picardie museum, the Dewailly cloister, the Hôtel des Feuillants, the Somme prefecture, the Louis library Aragon or the citadel. Our city is blessed with magnificent historical monuments and I am happy that they are open to authors and visitors, because they are our common heritage, like books“, he explains to us.
The organizer is well known to the Amiens cultural scene and to the thousands of spectators who attend Journey to the Heart of Summer every summer, in July, at the Dewailly cloister in Amiens. A festival that he created 20 years ago, dedicated to world music, and which welcomed more than 9 000 people this year.
In a city of more than 133 000 inhabitants and whose population is rather young in addition, a major literary event was missing. “The city and the metropolis are 100% on my side, they completely support this project with a relatively modest budget: 23 000 euros. A sum that barely covers hotel costs, leaflets, heated barnums, train tickets“, specifies Yacoub Abdellatif. “To bring in the authors, we had to use relationships“, he adds. A universe that the organizer of the 1ʳᵉ edition of Lumières de Livres knows him well, since he is himself an author of plays. “It’s a new adventure that begins. A great adventure I hope. Let’s make this first edition a success and this festival will become great. In any case, the city wants to make this literary event last over time.“
“More than ever, in this complicated period, we need benchmarks. And books are a bit like the beacons necessary for our psychic survival“, Yacoub Abdellatif tells us.
Among the guest writers, there are many regional authors. Among which Philippe Lacoche, journalist, writer and lyricist, born in Aisne, and long-time journalist at Courrier Picard. The public will also be able to discuss with Gilles Touati, cardiovascular surgeon at Amiens-Picardie University Hospital and author of the Valley of the Térébinthes. And then visitors will also be able to have the latest books by their favorite novelists signed. Like Abdoulaye Kanté, author of Policeman, Child of the Republic published by Fayard. A testimony about his journey as a black and Muslim man within the police. A meeting with him is planned for Saturday afternoon at the Somme prefecture. “But young people, readers or future readers, are not forgottenadds Yacoub Adellatif. An entire class from the Romain Rolland vocational high school will be mobilized to welcome and drive the authors. A proximity that can only benefit them. And then, young members of the ALCO social and intercultural center will read a text on Friday, October 4, at 8:30 p.m., at the Dewailly cloister.“
The first literary festival in the city of Amiens opens its doors on Friday at 10 a.m., in the presence of around sixty authors spread across the rooms of the Dewailly cloister. “Barnums, placed in the courtyard of the cloister, will be used for writing workshops“, specifies Yacoub Adellatif. An event where entry is free.
The Dewailly cloister main venue of the “Lumières de Livres” festival with four other emblematic places in Amiens
•
© Thomas Imbert / FTV
The festivals will close its doors on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. and must close at the Comédie de Picardie from 7 p.m., with a reading conference by Amiens teacher Zedjiga Abdelkrim. This Albert Camus specialist is associated with the prestigious Pléiade collection for her detailed knowledge of the writer, born in Algeria. “Without hope, we never obtain immortality“, concludes Yacoub Adellatif, head of this brand new festival in Picardy. “And precisely, books, reading, make us eternal, in the sense that they suspend time and its gravity.”
