The Inalco 2026 Multilingual Short Story Competition announces its winners

22 April 2026

  • Awards and distinctions

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Once again this year, French-speaking students from all over the world, from Bosnia-Herzegovina to the Dominican Republic, brilliantly rose to the challenge of bringing languages into dialogue while exploring the theme of "Networked Languages" chosen by the jury for this sixth edition of the competition.
Among the winners, there was a particularly notable participation by students for whom French is not their first language, fully embodying the spirit of the competition. The list of winners also reflects strong representation from students in the Language Teaching program at Inalco and the Master’s in French as a Foreign Language (FLE) program at Aix-Marseille University.
Adna Catovic, 1st prize winner, reads excerpts from her short story "La maison que je porte" with actress Pauline Legoëdec
Adna Catovic, 1st prize winner, reads excerpts from her short story "La maison que je porte" with actress Pauline Legoëdec © Inalco‎

The 2026 prize list

Grand prizes:

  • 1st prize: La maison que je porte by Adna Catovic - 500 euros
  • 2nd prize: Ararat by Théo Gaillard - 200 euros
  • 3rd prize: L'alphabet du manque by Melissa Mey - 100 euros
  • Jury's favorite: La mauvaise herbe by Basma Fenan

InCIAM special "digital writing" prize:

  • 1st prize: Memory by Caroline Guyennet - 400 euros
  • Coup de coeur: Silence dispersé by Rizlene Zeriou
  • Prix d'encouragement: Téléphone perdu by Emma Juliano
  • Prix Tangentielles: Sans titre by Zako Kitoko

The ten winners below will be invited to take part in a writing workshop and will have their short stories published in the collective work Langues en réseaux, to be published by éditions Tangentielles :

  • La maison que je porte, Adna Catovic
  • Ararat, Théo Gaillard
  • L'alphabet du manque, Melissa Mey
  • La mauvaise herbe, by Basma Fenan
  • PSumpaan, Koame
  • Connectée, Philomène Mondain
  • Mission Lamarck-Caulaincourt, Héloïse Gambier
  • Rhizome, Jean-Pierre-Marcel Ekouma Obiang
  • Héritage, Loreine Lonoh
  • La nostalgie est une femme charmante, Ranya Belkheiri
Round table with Gaël Octavia, sponsor of the 2026 Inalco multilingual short story competition
Round table with Gaël Octavia, sponsor of the 2026 Inalco multilingual short story competition © Inalco‎
Melissa Mey, 3rd prize winner with "L'alphabet du manque" (The alphabet of lack) Discussion between Marielle Anselmo and the first two prizewinners, Adna Catovic and Théo Gaillard Caroline Guyennet presents her digital work "Memory", InCIAM "digital writing" prize
Melissa Mey, 3rd prize winner with "L'alphabet du manque" (The alphabet of lack) © Inalco / Discussion between Marielle Anselmo and the first two prizewinners, Adna Catovic and Théo Gaillard © Inalco / Caroline Guyennet presents her digital work "Memory", InCIAM "digital writing" prize © Inalco‎

Winners honored at awards ceremony

The prize list was unveiled at the awards ceremony on Thursday, April 16, 2026, in the presence of the winning students and the competition's godmother, Martinican author Gaël Octavia, also winner of the Prix Goncourt de la nouvelle 2025.

The event opened with a round-table discussion with Marielle Anselmo, professor at Inalco and co-organizer of the competition, Gaël Octavia, competition godmother, Marion Michel, winner of the 2025 edition, Laurence Bedoin, professor at École Estienne and Simon Lhéritier, winner of the 2022 edition and jury member.

The first three prizewinners (Adna Catovic, Théo Gaillard and Melissa Mey), in duet with actress Pauline Legoëdec, presented a reading-performance of excerpts from their short stories, then dialogued with Marielle Anselmo and Gaël Octavia about the creation and themes of their respective short stories.
Caroline Guyennet, winner of the InCIAM "digital writing" prize, also took to the stage to present her short story Memory, projected in the auditorium for the occasion.

Laurence Bedoin, professor at the École Estienne, presented the audience with several mock-up tracks developed by her students for the collection of the 2025 edition of the competition.

The event ended with a participatory multilingual writing experience with the audience hosted by Simon L'héritier.

View the replay of the awards ceremony.

École Estienne joins the competition for the fourth year

Editions Tangentielles and Inalco have established a partnership with the "Graphic Design and Typography" course at the École supérieure des arts et industries graphiques (École Estienne). The students proposed several creative editorial layout projects for the publication of the 2025 collection, Langues en folie. The collectively developed project will be published shortly. Information to be found on the Tangentielles publishing website.

Use of Braille in the framework of the "Langues en folie" collection
Use of Braille in the framework of the "Langues en folie" collection © Proposed editorial layout by students at École Estienne‎

Edition 2027: Langues d'après

The awards ceremony was also an opportunity to launch the seventh edition of the competition and unveil its theme, entitled "Langues d'après".

Participants will be able to submit their short stories online until March 2027.
Rules and entry details to follow.

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 (Prix spécial InCIAM "écriture numérique"): for digital plurilingual texts, playing on the multimodality offered by technological supports for writing between languages.
USEFUL LINKS
Inalco multilingual short story competition website Past winners