Montreal, March 2025 – Has everything turned upside down? That’s what is being broadcast on every news outlet… What if literature has the power to right the world? The 27th edition of the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival showcases authors who change the world with the power of words and features an exceptional array of voices from Quebec, Canada and around the globe. It offers both contemplation and empowerment with thought-provoking interviews, award ceremonies, public readings, cocktail evenings, performances, round-table discussions, book signings, live music, workshops and a wealth of online events. The Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival, one of the largest multilingual literary events in North America, runs from April 24 to 27 at beautiful Hotel 10 (new online programming starts April 14). Many Festival events are free.
Festivalgoers enjoy an eclectic selection of over 120 literary encounters, in both new and favourite series. After 27 years, certain formats and themes have become important events for audiences. The Festival continues to program Literature and Indigenous Voices, Peace and War; Queer Voices, Almemar (Jewish literature and culture); Women and Words; Ecology and Literature; Azul (Spanish & Portuguese), Bold and Creative; esteemed Literary Prizes to notable foreign and Canadian authors; and the TD-Blue Metropolis Children’s Festival. This year’s Blue Metropolis Foundation fundraising evening is The Word for a Laugh. The Festival kicks things off with Blue Met Talks; the opening ceremony cocktail features 11 captivating, top-tier Festival participants.
Marie-Andrée Lamontagne, director of programming and communications, is enthusiastic about new initiatives spicing up the programming, “We’re thrilled with the Romance, Fantasy and Other Imaginary series, and the Serenity Series, featuring among others, yoga, poetry and Tibetan bowls as ways to find inner calm. The series also offers a literary brunch in the form of a free workshop exploring mental health, for children and the young at heart.” Other 2025 series additions include Literature of our Times and Governor General’s Awards.
Every year the Festival is structured around strong themes that bear testimony to keen social awareness and a passion for literature in all its richness. This year’s theme is ‘Time, the Tree, the Page’. How long does it take a tree to grow? To ask this question is to ask about one’s relationship with time. Writing takes time, so does reading. Along with time, trees will be at the heart of this year’s edition. Trees tell us as much about ourselves as they do about the state of our climate. This grand plant comes in a great variety of species and reflects the diversity of human beings, who should also be able to coexist and grow together in harmony in our forest-world.
“The idea of making the tree our guest of honour and then having it as a common thread between the authors, their novels or their pursuits, is inspiring,” said Festival Executive and Artistic Director, William St-Hilaire. Added Lamontagne, “It is fascinating the way so many of us identify with trees. Ecology is a major human issue that has become inescapable. It has an increasingly important place at the Festival, particularly with the awarding of the annual Blue Metropolis Planet Literature Prize.”
Prized Festival highlights
The diversity of species in nature is matched by the great diversity of human beings. This doesn’t mean violence is inevitable, but what can it be countered with… Salman Rushdie, who receives the Blue Metropolis 2025 International Literary Grand Prix, believes the answer lies in the power of imagination, fable and fiction. In his latest book, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, Rushdie writes that literature is the only weapon he has ever possessed. His presence will be one of the highlights of the Festival. “We can’t wait to bring back this outstanding event, awarding our top literary prize to this important, touching and human author whose writing is as masterful as ever,” said Lamontagne.
Internationally renowned British historian, novelist and essayist Simon Sebag Montefiore receives this year’s Blue Metropolis Words to Change Prize. His novels and essays on Russia, Stalin and Empress Catherine, and his biography of the city of Jerusalem, are worldwide bestsellers. His most recent book, The World: A Family History of Humanity, tells the story of humanity from Neanderthal to Donald Trump, as seen through the prism of famous families who have shaped our history: the Caesars, Medici, Bonapartes, Habsburgs, Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Kennedys, and even the Kims (North Korea) and the Assads (Syria).
German author Peter Wohlleben has a gift for making the beauty of scientific knowledge accessible to the general public; he is arguably the best-known forester and friend to trees in the world. When it was published in 2015, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate was a phenomenon and remains so, with translations in several languages and multiple reprints, including the latest adaptation—a gorgeous, fascinating graphic novel. Peter Wohlleben receives the Blue Metropolis Planet Literature Prize. In addition to his many books, Wohlleben is deeply involved in the preservation of forests and trees in Germany and around the world. His events at the Festival include an exchange with Anishinaabe author, journalist and University of Manitoba professor Niigaan Sinclair on Indigenous and non-Indigenous visions of the forest.
In 2025, Blue Metropolis inaugurates the international edition of the First Peoples’ Prize. The recognition of the vibrancy of Indigenous cultures is taking place all over the world, beyond national borders. The first winner of this international edition is American author Stephen Graham Jones of the Pikunis (Blackfoot) Nation, who lives and teaches in Boulder, Colorado. His work comprises some thirty crime fiction novels, short stories, graphic novels and horror novels including The Only Good Indians, My Heart is a Chainsaw and Don’t Fear the Reaper.
The Blue Metropolis Violet Prize, given to a leading figure in Canadian queer literature for lifetime achievement, is awarded to France Daigle, one of the most singular voices in Acadia and the French-speaking world. In awarding this prize, the jury honours an irreverent voice who, for over forty years, has been constantly inventing new ways of expressing the world. The Premio Metropolis Azul is awarded to the renowned Mexican novelist, translator and critic Cristina Rivera Garza for her body of work. Her novel No One Will See Me Cry, which recounts the murder of her 20-year-old sister at the hands of her former boyfriend, won the Pulitzer Prize. The winner of the Blue Metropolis/Conseil des arts de Montréal New Contribution Prize is Stephie Mazunya.
Also at the Festival this year are winning first-time novelists from the Rendez-vous du Premier roman de l’UNEQ and the Festival du Premier Roman de Chambéry: Emmanuelle Pierrot (La version qui n’intéresse personne) for Quebec, and the French Moroccan novelist Soufiane Khaloua (La Vallée des Lazhars), winner of the Québec-France-Marie-Claire Blais Prize.
A TREE IS SO MUCH MORE THAN JUST A TREE…
Trees are poems, myths, ancient knowledge. Trees and human beings have been in dialogue since time immemorial. What have they been able to say to one another over the centuries? French writer Éryck de Rubercy‘s L’Univers des arbres is an impressive 900-page panoramic collection on trees, their symbolic and literary universe, as well as the latest scientific discoveries concerning them. He will be in attendance along with French novelist Alexis Jenni (L’art français de la guerre, Prix Goncourt 2011; Parmi les arbres. Essai de vie commune). Another notable presence is Quebec poet Hélène Dorion who continues the magnificent momentum that fuels her work with Mes forêts. Trees, in all their singularity, are at the heart of these poems, which seek to capture “the sound of the world/the passing of time”.
Along with Salman Rushdie, interviews with Madeleine Thien and Claire Messud will be conducted by the acclaimed Eleanor Wachtel as part of the wonderful and ever-popular Eleanor Wachtel Blue Metropolis Series. Exceptional writer Thien will preview her latest novel, The Books of Records, a story which brings migrants together in a mysterious building outside of time and space. American novelist Messud, whose roots are Canadian and Algerian, will be presenting her most recent novel, This Strange Eventful History, which tells the story of a family over seven decades. The book was Oprah Winfrey’s (among others) 2024 Book of the Year.
The Festival’s Literature and Indigenous Voices program welcomes poets Liliana Ancalao (Patagonia, Mapuche, Mapuzung), Joséphine Bacon (nutshimit/Québec, Innu), Fiorella Boucher (Uruguay/Québec, Guarani); essayist Niigaan Sinclair (Winnipeg/Little Peguis, Anishinaabe), Inuit literature specialist Nelly Duvicq (Nunavik) and novelist Coltrane Seesequasis (Gatineau, Willow Cree). Seesequasis, who reimagines the fantasy genre from an Indigenous perspective, is taking part in the Romance, Fantasy and Other Imaginary series, along with Canadian novelist Pascale Lacelle and Franco-Quebec novelist Nell Pfeiffer.
The great Anne Michaels, winner of the 2024 Giller Prize for Held, will discuss the joys of translation with her translator Dominique Fortier, as well as with novelist Kev Lambert and his translator Donald Winkler. Michaels will also participate in a discussion with American poet, visual artist and photographer Rachel Eliza Griffiths on the special quality of time as seen from the point of view of art.
Other notable attendees are Zibby Owens (USA), Davide Longo (Italy), Julia Malye (France), David Chariandy (Canada), Michael Prazan (France), Mateo García Elizondo (Mexico), François Kersaudy (France), Ben Caplan and his lively klezmer band (Canada), Felipe Restrepo Pombo (Colombia), Juana Libedinsky (Argentina), Moustafa Bayoumi (USA), and so many others from Quebec, Canada, Europe and the Americas. Returning is the Professional Space and extensive Partner Events.
All the world’s literary roads lead to Montreal…. In total, there are 167 participants for the adult program alone, which in the spirit of openness and curiosity that characterizes the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival, reflects a wide range of subjects from war to happiness; from the forest to the family; and from love to the tree of life. Concurrently, the TD-Blue Metropolis Children’s Festival shares its special family-friendly programming in the Maisons de la culture and libraries of Greater Montreal. Programs will be presented in English, French, Spanish, Portugues, Italian, Yiddish, Ukrainian, Arabic and Inuttitut. Abundance and quality will be the order of the day in April 2025.
Utopia for avid readers, the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival offers numerous free events; paid tickets start at $8. The Festival Pass is a limited special price of $30 only until April 14 (regular price $50) and includes a $25 discount on book purchases at the Paragraph kiosk at the Festival.
Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival
April 24 to April 27; online programming starts April 14
Hotel 10, 10 Sherbrooke St. West
Info line: 438 453-7721 Festival information: bluemetropolis.org/practical-info25/
For complete programming: bluemetropolis.org/2025festival/
