Lyon, City of Crime … Fiction Literature

Posted by Speakeasy News > Thursday 30 March 2017 > What's On


Now in its 13th year, Quais du Polar is the largest crime literature festival in France. It will take place from March 31 to April 2 2017 in Lyon. Founded in 2005, this festival invites many authors and filmmakers of the noir genre.

SN_quais_polar02_homeAs the years go by, the festival has grown in prominence to become one of the biggest crime-fiction events in France. It attracts around 80,000 visitors.

The 2017 Quais du Polar’s edition will focus on the main theme “Europe, from East to West”. Throughout this main focus, Quais du Polar will explore alternative or unknown territories of crime fiction: Germany, but also further East towards Romania, Ukraine, Estonia, Poland or Serbia. Singular – and often truly dark – new lands will be offered to readers’ curiosity.

There will be plenty of authors known to CFL fans – including Val McDermid, Arnaldur Indridason, Megan Abbott, Lisa Gardner, Donna Leon, Philip Kerr, MC Beaton, David Vann, Fiona Barton, Ragnar Jonasson, David Young, Bernard Minier and Hervé le Corre.

Like every year, Quais du Polar will be involved in events across the whole city of Lyon. Over three days, more than fifty events are organised including debates, meetings, readings, signing sessions, concerts, plays and crime film screenings chosen by the authors themselves. Since it began, the festival has welcomed famous novelists and masters of the genre like Tonino Benacquista, Harlan Coben, Jo Nesbo and James Ellroy.

Museums will once again team up with the festival: “Conversations around an art work” will still be scheduled at the Beaux-Arts Museum, the Confluence Museum will host several round-tables and the Gallo-Roman Museum will invite the public to a Murder Party.

Authors will be invited by media-libraries, libraries and bookstores.

Invited authors will present a Noir Weekend at the Institut Lumière, birthplace of cinema, and will take the floor in theatres of Lyon to introduce films and meet the public. TV series will also be in the spotlight with showings of productions by the Arte channel, and an exclusive production by Canal+.

The urban tour will take the amateur investigators from the Confluence Museum to the Town Hall.
 For this year’s edition, this great investigation will be doubled with an interactive game created by the Centre Factory and collaborated on by five schools and universities, which represents sixty students.

The “Noir Dictations” will celebrate their fifth anniversary in 2017. With the partnership of the National Agency for the Struggle against Illiteracy, after Amélie Nothomb and François Morel, two other important figures will host the playful dictations, one of which will be dedicated to schools, and the other open to the public.

If you’re interested in Quais du Polar, you can visit Lyons for the weekend. The city is beautiful and the atmosphere during the festival is electric.

In French, "polar "is a generic term for crime fiction. Quais is probably a reference to 36 Quai des Orfèvres where the Parisian police have their headquarters. Quais also means river banks and the city is shaped by two rivers: the river Rhône and the river Saône.

 

For more information:

website: http://www.quaisdupolar.com

Live Meeting Streaming lectures: www.live.quaisdupolar.com

Facebook: Quais du Polar

Twitter: @quaispolar - @qdpconnection

Instagram: quais_polar

Youtube: quaisdupolar