Lettres d'Automne

Lettres d'Automne: Thirty Years of Literary Passion in Montauban

Founded in 1991 by the association Confluences, Lettres d'Automne is one of the oldest and most renowned literary festivals in France. For over thirty years, this exceptional event has made Montauban, every November, an ephemeral capital of contemporary literature, welcoming authors from around the world to share their universe with a passionate audience.

Over two weeks and in about twenty venues across the city, the festival offers more than 150 events — readings, author encounters, round tables, debates, writing workshops, literary performances, school and university meetings — making Lettres d'Automne a multifaceted event, accessible to all audiences and sensibilities.

An International Festival of Renown

Each edition is organized around a guest of honor author, whose work forms the common thread of the program. Over the years, the festival has hosted major literary figures from the French and international scene.

The 2025 edition, the 35th edition, welcomed Marie-Hélène Lafon as its guest of honor, one of the most powerful and original voices in contemporary French literature. Born in Cantal, author of a body of work deeply rooted in rural life and family memories, Marie-Hélène Lafon traveled the festival venues to share her vision of literature, meet readers, high school students, teachers, and librarians from all over the country.

Confluences: An Association Committed to Literature

Behind Lettres d'Automne is the association Confluences, founded in Montauban and entirely dedicated to the promotion of contemporary literature. Beyond the annual festival, Confluences carries out cultural mediation actions throughout the year: writing residencies, workshops in schools, meetings in media libraries, publications, and educational projects.

The association is supported by the Ministry of Culture, the National Book Centre (CNL), the Occitanie Region, and the City of Montauban, demonstrating national and regional recognition of the remarkable work accomplished for over thirty years.

Diverse Meeting Venues

The festival takes over about twenty venues throughout Montauban to host its 150 events:

• La Petite Comédie — association headquarters, main venue for encounters
• Media libraries and libraries of Montauban
• Independent bookstores in the city
• Theaters and cultural venues
• Schools and universities
• Cafes, public spaces, and associations

This multiplicity of venues reflects the festival's commitment to reaching audiences in their daily lives, breaking down the symbolic barriers that can separate certain audiences from the literary world.

Creative Non-Fiction and New Forms of Narrative

In 2026, for its 36th edition, Lettres d'Automne will explore creative non-fiction, a booming hybrid literary genre that blends novel, documentary, autobiographical investigation, reportage, and poetry. This unifying theme will allow us to question the boundaries between literary genres and explore how literature captures reality through renewed narrative forms.

The guests of honor for this edition, Justine Augier and Christophe Boltanski, are two authors whose work perfectly embodies this approach: exploring family memory, exile, and transmission between the intimate and the collective, they show how literature can be simultaneously testimony, investigation, and creation.