Enter the Inalco Multilingual Short Story Competition 2024 until March 18, 2024

A new edition not so silly!

The theme of the 2024 edition, "Animal Languages", invites us to approach plurilingualism in a broad extension, opening up to other imaginary worlds, considering that language is not limited to human beings alone... Unless the expression is to be taken in a metaphorical sense? It's up to you to take up this theme as you see fit!

The text (a short story of 8,000 to 15,000 characters) must be written in French, but will necessarily involve, even occasionally, a language other than standard French. All languages and linguistic varieties are accepted. Fabricated and invented languages are permitted.

Timetable

• Until March 18, 2024 - 11:59 pm (Paris time): submission of the short story or digital work online
• May/June 2024: announcement of results and award ceremony at Inalco (Paris)
• 2024 - 2025: publication of short stories by Éditions Tangentielles

Godmothers of the 2024 edition

Writer Elitza Gueorguieva, godmother of the 2024 edition of the competition
What an honor and pleasure it is to preside over this multilingual short story competition!
When I first arrived in France, I seemed to write sentences that were too long in both Bulgarian and English syntax, which earned me the reputation of being a bit of a lunatic. It took me some time to learn how to navigate this multilingualism and turn it into a strength. Because what's important to me in writing is how to make language singular, how to shift it, how to carve out my own path. This competition is a wonderful opportunity to work on strangeness, otherness, to experiment and free oneself from learned forms. To change perspective.
Good writing to participants, look forward to reading you!
Elitza Gueorguieva

Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, Elitza Gueorguieva has lived and worked in France since 2000, where she devotes herself to film, writing and performance projects.
She published a novel entitled Les cosmonautes ne font que passer with Éditions Verticales in 2016, Prix André Dubreuil for the first novel from the Société des gens de lettres and several texts (AOC, Le magazine littéraire, Les carnets de l'IMEC, etc.) and a long short story in Le livre des places with Éditions Inculte. Her second novel will be published by Verticales in January 2024.
She has made several documentary films, including Each wall is a door awarded at Cinéma du réel 2017 and Our silent place screened at Visions du réel 2021 and awarded at Sofia International Film Festival and the Union of Bulgarian Filmmakers. She creates performances for various scenic venues such as the Actoral festival in Marseille, Hors Pistes, Hors-Limites and Extra! at the Centre Pompidou.

Alexandra Saemmer, patron of the Inciam Prize for "digital writing"
Alexandra Saemmer is a researcher, author of digital literature and editor of books devoted to digital literature, online media, TV series and critical media education. She is a professor of Information and Communication Sciences at the Université Paris VIII Vincennes-Saint-Denis.
Her work is rooted in pragmatic semiotics and techno-semiotics. Alexandra Saemmer co-directs the CEMTI (Centre d'études sur les médias, les technologies et l'internationalisation), the international communication journal MEI (Médiation et information) and the bilingual French-English journal HYBRID which she founded.

How to enter

This international competition is open to all French-speaking students enrolled in a university establishment for the 2023-2024 academic year in France, the French-speaking world and beyond.

Two options are available to compete:

• Individual short story in classic text format: a short story written in French but involving at least one language or variety other than standard French.
• Possibly collective digital work ("digital writing" prize): for multilingual digital texts, playing on the multimodality offered by technological supports.

To enter, submit your short story online before March 18, 2024, 11:59 pm (Paris time).
Consult the submission procedures and writing constraints on the competition website.

Four prizes up for grabs

• 1st prize: €500 culture voucher
• 2nd prize: €200 culture voucher
• 3rd prize: 100 € culture voucher
• "Digital writing" prize, 400 € culture voucher + promotion and distribution of the work online and in the Editions Tangentielles book, as well as at various events linked to the competition

A Grand Jury "Coup de Coeur" is possible, on a purely honorary basis, and with no financial reward.

The best short stories (as chosen by the jury) will also be published by Editions Tangentielles, and their authors will be invited to take part in a writing workshop led by the competition sponsor or another speaker specializing in writing.

Composition of the jury

The jury, made up of Inalco members with diverse backgrounds and external members, is responsible for evaluating the short stories. The jury ruling on the three best short stories will include, in addition to Inalco representatives, Elitza Gueorguieva and the publisher of Éditions Tangentielles.

Contacts: marielle.anselmo@inalco.fr and isabelle.cros@univ-amu.fr