For your 40smy edition, the Ecritures & Spiritualités book fair will be held on Sunday, November 17, from 2 to 6 p.m., 78, rue Bonaparte, in the premises of the VI town hall.my district of Paris (free entry).
Seventy French-speaking authors, poets, essayists and novelists will interact with the public and sign their works published during the last three years. The psychologist Marie de Hennezel will be present, for example, along with the philosopher Souleymane Bachir Diagne, the poet Colette Nys-Mazure or the writer Laurence Cossé.
The invited authors, selected above all according to literary criteria, are all inspired by the great spiritual traditions, whether Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish or Buddhist. “In his works, They weave a link between the existential questions that everyone asks about life, suffering, death or joy, and the literary dimension of sacred texts. This is what we call inner life or spiritual life.explains journalist and writer Christine Ray, president of the Ecritures & Spiritualités association, organizer of the show.
“Society seems to fear religions”
Three personalities are at the origin of the creation of this association and this book fair in 1977: the Orthodox theologian Olivier Clément (1921-2009), the Muslim philosopher Mohamed Talbi (1921-2017) and the Jewish poet Claude Vigée (1921 -2020). ). “Everyone was anchored in their tradition, Christine Ray continues. Together they shared the same concern for a society that was increasingly materialistic and distant from spirituality. »
In 2015, the association called “Francophone believing writers” changed its name to Ecritures & Spiritualités. Over the years, the show, born in an environment of intellectuals, has found a determined audience: this year six hundred visitors are expected. The 2019 edition, organized in the spacious hall of the Collège des Bernardins, even attracted two thousand readers, with one hundred authors present.
The event also gradually opened to non-monotheistic religions, welcoming Buddhist authors in particular. Among them, the Vendée lama monk Jigmé Thrinlé Gyatso will be present this year for the third time. “For a book fair to be entirely dedicated to spirituality is exceptional.”greets the poet, also co-president of the Buddhist Union of France. In the different salons in which I participate as a monk and writer, I observe that the topic of spiritualities is difficult to address. Despite secularism, French society seems to fear religions, I’m sorry. »
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