2025 Angers Literary Festival – What are our possible futures?
The library is thrilled to announce that we will be organizing our second Literary Festival on Saturday, May 24th, at the Salons Curnonsky in the heart of Angers. With the theme “Possible Futures” this festival will bring together six thinkers on the future of identity, politics, food, climate change, publishing, and more…
Our future is full of more questions than answers right now. How can we protect our democracies? How can we fight for human rights in a social media landscape filled with misinformation? How can we cope with climate change and ever-worsening wildfires, hurricanes, and droughts? Who should we listen to when deciding how to live ethically in response to today’s challenges?
We have little precedent for how to answer questions like these. And all too often, when we turn to television or film, we find grim, stark, and dystopian portrayals of the future.
That is why we need stories about other possible futures to tell ourselves and our children. We are proud to present the 2025 Angers Literary Festival, where we will hear from six thinkers on this topic. France 24’s Erin Ogunkeye will help lead the day. Amanda Bankert will talk about how veganism and food politics are changing in France and globally. Amy Plum will delve into how inclusivity and identity in young adult fiction is continuing to grow and evolve. Daniel Levin Becker will tell us about Indivisible Cities, a project from the French literary collective Oulipo that created fictional representations of cities under climate pressure and the role narratives play in advancing climate action. Kristina Kearns will explore the reality that even though only a narrow group of people is able to get published, the opportunity to experiment is more accessible than ever before. And Barbara Diggs will share how the history of Civil Rights era marches, boycotts, and strikes could continue to shape our politics in the present and future.
We hope you will join us for a day that will be filled with fascinating, illuminating, and hopeful discussions about our possible futures.
Click here to learn more about our featured authors!
This event is free and open to the public. Stay tuned – the full schedule and registration will be launched soon!
