Award ceremony for the 2026 edition of the Multilingual Short Story Competition
The awards ceremony will take place in the presence of writer Gaël Octavia, godmother of the 2026 edition of the Competition.
This evening will honor the winners: excerpts from their short stories will be read by actress Pauline Legoëdec, and the winning digital works will be projected. The readings will be accompanied by a round-table discussion moderated by Marielle Anselmo (Inalco, jury member). She will engage the young authors in dialogue with Gaël Octavia, the patron of the event, and the members of the jury: Marion Michel (winner of the 2025 edition), Isabelle Cros (AMU, president of the jury), Simon Lhéritier (Inalco) and Laurence Dollard-Bedoin (Ecole Estienne). The publishing work carried out by students from Ecole Estienne (partner of the competition for the fourth consecutive year) will also be highlighted.
Finally, the evening will close with the launch of the 2027 edition. To familiarize themselves with it, the public will be invited to take part in an interactive multilingual writing workshop.
About Gaël Octavia
Gaël Octavia writes novels, theater, short stories, poetry, screenplays, paints and directs short films. Her texts are marked by the Martinique society in which she grew up, and tackle universal themes such as family, identity, the female condition, power, migrants... They have been translated into English, Italian, Romanian and Czech. Her plays have been read and performed in Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Europe, the United States, Africa, Reunion Island... His first novel, La fin de Mame Baby (Gallimard), won the Prix Wepler, special mention, in 2017. Her collection L'étrangeté de Mathilde T. (Gallimard) was awarded the Goncourt de la nouvelle 2025.
About Pauline Legoëdec
Trained as an actress, Pauline Legoëdec is also a singer and likes to get her body moving in shows that are often hybrid and close to performance art. After graduating from a literary preparatory class with a theater option, she spent a year in Minsk (Belarus) following a multidisciplinary training program and co-founded her own theater company, La Syncope. She works for other companies as a performer and assistant director.
The Multilingual Short Story Competition is a project supported by Inalco's Student Life and Student Success Department (REVE), with the collaboration of Aix-Marseille Université's InCIAM and the partnership of École Estienne.
