Stéphane Le Foll is mayor of Le Mans, president of Le Mans Métropole and former minister.
Make it read!, the Le Mans reading festival and book fair, has achieved all its objectives, even the most ambitious. The book fair, both of high artistic quality and very general public, has risen to the highest level of national fairs in just two editions; the reading festival shines for a full week with more than 60 meetings promoting reading for everyone throughout the city. In 2022, this event welcomed 60,000 visitors in one week and today it has established itself as the unmissable event for the literary season. For the 2023 edition, there are still 180 nationally renowned authors in general literature, children’s literature, comics, comics and manga who are participating in the show, to meet their readers and host the rich program of round tables.
During the week, the festival offers events around Colette, whose 150th anniversary we are celebrating, workshops and shows highlighting books and reading, and above all ultra-paced activities on the theme of 2023, “ Cloak and dagger!
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In the “rue du Livre” and throughout the weekend, children will be able to try their hand at fencing, rediscover d’Artagnan in the original texts performed outdoors or in our traveling caravan.
The 2023 novelty is the result of a great desire: that of creating a nationally renowned literary prize, awarded to Le Mans during Fait lire!, affirming the city of Le Mans as a reference for literature and culture in the midst of the literary season. This prize is called “Le Mans-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry”, with the support of the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Foundation for Youth, in homage to the connection that exists between the territory and the author, who lived his childhood at Le Mans.
Daniel Pennac did us the immense honor of chairing the jury for this new prize and he led the deliberations with incredible passion. The name of the first winner of the prize, Jean-Paul Delfino, was revealed during the opening evening of the reading festival, on Monday October 2 at the Théâtre Scarron.
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Reading is a major challenge in the construction and development of societies and it is vital for everyone to learn, to understand, to have access to knowledge, to the world of books. The responsibility of public policies is great in this matter and Read it! is the concrete translation of this ambition that I carry with conviction.
