The “Nuits de la lecture” (Nights of Reading) were created in 2017 by the French Ministry of Culture and are organised for the third consecutive year by the Centre National du Livre to place a bet: throughout the “Nuits”, reading must be a game. So all places of reading, libraries and bookshops, but also museums and theatres, “compete in inventiveness to welcome the broader audience possible on the subject of reading in all its forms”.

The athletic body, but not only that

The audience will be invited this year to gather in thousands of in-person and digital events focusing on the subject of the body. As the website dedicated to the event points out, this subject is some sort of “an echo to the Summer Olympic Games”. Though the “Nuits de la lecture” try to understand how “female and male writers pictured the body in their work”, the body will also be presented under different angles.

Indeed, the body as present in literature offers “endless avatars, metamorphosis and poetic, literary, scientific, sociological and political reflections”. These reflections may be a “poetic evocation”, or an “anatomy subject for science” or “the mirror of a personality trait for a novel or album character” and “a form of hybridisation with technology in science fiction”. But, the website adds that the body is also a very political subject, since it leads to discussing modern and current issues, such as “feminism or the relation of men to nature”.

8,000 actions in 4,000 places in 2023

During the four exceptional evenings (but also during the day), thousands of events are scheduled everywhere in France and beyond its borders in a spirit of creativeness and sharing to exploit the subject of the body and its variations.

The “Nuits de la lecture” are indeed an opportunity to set up meetings and events in libraries and bookshops, but also education institutions, museums, cultural and art places, non-profit association and solidarity places, and even the French institutes in the world, which are places that reaffirm the “critical place of books and reading for everyone”. During the 2023 edition, about 8,000 events in 4,000 places were organised, attracting a “always more people around the pleasure of reading and sharing your reading”.

Events everywhere in France

After Marie Darrieussecq in 2023, writer and philosopher Claire Marin and choreographer Angelin Preljocaj are the sponsors of the 8th edition. In addition to the events supported by the sponsors, the website dedicated to the event offers several highlights everywhere in France. In the Île-de-France region, they include for example:

• the inauguration of the “Nuits de la lecture” at the Musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris, on 16 January, where “dramatized readings” are accessible to visitors during the night session of two current exhibitions;
• literature in the Paris metro, on 18, 19, 20, 21 January from 10 pm on all lines of the RATP network, in which short extracts are recorded by theatre actors, including from the Comédie-Française, on the subject of the body;
• the “mille et une langues” (thousand and one languages) at the Institut de France, on 20 January, where member of the French Academy will read under the Coupole of the Académie française “extracts they like, piqued their curiosity or caused surprise”.

Many additional events are scheduled in all French regions. It’s worth noting that an original initiative, accessible everywhere, has been set: a poetic voice server, active for the four days and nights of reading, from 18 to 21 January. The voice server was created specifically for the event. It is exploited by a Lille company, Home Théâtre, to offer “a collection of poems on the subject of the body, with a very simple concept”. You just have to dial a free phone number (03 74 09 84 24) to hear on the other side of the line theatre actors reading poems!