Inalco multilingual short story competition

The Inalco Plurilingual Short Story Competition carried by the Licence + program has been selected by the International Organization of the Francophonie through the Languages in Dialogue initiative, which aims to promote the different varieties of French and multilingualism in the French-speaking world.

With the support of association DULALA and Outranspo (Ouvroir de translation potencial)

This international competition is open to all registered French-speaking students.e.s enrolled in a university for the 2019-2020 academic year in France, the French-speaking world and beyond.

Register online before June 28 to be able to take part in the writing workshop organized by Outranspo in early July, and submit the short story by midnight on September 1, 2020

"Because of its openness to the world (more than 70 languages are taught here, including many so-called "rare" and minority languages), no venue lends itself better than Inalco to hosting such a competition, even more so with the partnership of the OIF, a promoter of plurilingualism as well as the Francophonie. This is all the more true as French in the French-speaking world takes on a wide variety of forms, all too often invisibilized or downplayed. It's this internal plurilingualism of languages, whose homogeneous character is only artificial, that our competition wants to promote, particularly for French, whose singularity masks the geolinguistic diversity of regional and national variants.

It's this rustling of languages in the French-speaking world that this competition would like to make heard, through your writings! "
Isabelle Cros, president of the jury

The jury

The jury, made up of Inalco members of various profiles (administrative staff, researchers, students, teachers...) and external members, is responsible for evaluating the short stories.
The jury is appointed by Isabelle Cros, organizer and jury president, and by Laurent Maheux, Inalco's delegate vice-president for student success and life.

This 2020 edition is sponsored by two French-speaking writers:

Yasmine Khlat, a French-Lebanese novelist. Her publications include Le Désespoir est un péché (Seuil, 2001), Prix des Cinq continents de la francophonie and Egypte 51 (Elyzad, 2019), finalist for the Prix de la Littérature arabe.

Quebec writer, poet and screenwriter Jean-Simon DesRochers was awarded the Prix Emile-Nelligan for Parle Seul (2003) and was a finalist for numerous other literary prizes: the Grand Prix littéraire Archambault for La Canicule des pauvres (2011) and the Prix des libraires du Québec. He is also assistant professor of creative writing at the Université de Montréal's Département des littératures de langue française.

Rules and conditions of entry

Theme and writing constraints

The theme of the 2020 edition: "Languages in dialogue"

The text (a short narrative of 1,800 to 3,600 words) must be written in French, but must involve, even occasionally, another language or another variety of French, whether hexagonal or not (Picard, Guadeloupean or Mauritian Creole, joual...).

Fabricated and invented languages are allowed.

Short stories must be written mainly in French and readable for a French-speaking reader, who will most likely not master the other language(s) used.

Only original, unpublished works are accepted.

Collaboratively written works are not admitted.

Only one text per student is allowed.

Submission of entries

Participation in the competition is in two stages: registration and then submission of the short story.

Registration: to participate, applicants must first register before June 28, 2020.

Sending the short story: in a second step, registrants will receive the necessary information to send their short story before September 1.

Getting inspired

To boost your creativity, a multilingual writing workshop by videoconference, funded by the Licence + program, will be offered free of charge to registrants. It will be led by Camille Bloomfield, poet and translator, founding member of Outranspo (Ouvroir de translation potencial) a group which, in the wake of Oulipo, practices experimental translation and plurilingual writing among other things.

Prizes

Three prizes may be awarded:
● the 1st prize, worth : 500 €
● the 2nd prize, in the amount of : 200 €
● the 3rd prize, in the amount of : 100 €

The first six prize-winning short stories will be published in 500 copies and distributed in the French-speaking world.
The authors of the first 20 prize-winning short stories will be invited to take part in a writing workshop organized and run by the writer(s) sponsoring the competition.

The workshop may take place remotely or face-to-face, in Paris, during the prize-giving ceremony. Costs associated with coming to Paris will not be covered.

The prize-giving ceremony in Paris (Inalco) will take place in March-April 2021.

For further information on the competition: concoursnouvelleplurilingue@gmail.com or isabelle.crosprigent@inalco.fr