Literature, sciences and comics

Books and literature form the very heart of the Utopiales festival. Meetings, courses, readings, a large bookshop and the Observatory of the Imaginary enable us to promote science fiction books and literature.

Round tables, meetings and readings

Round tables, meetings and readings hosted by guest authors, scientists and comics professionals take place every day of the festival, and take the form of four types of encounters around literature, science and comics: themed round tables directly linked to the year’s theme; round tables on current events in the genre; meetings dedicated to an author, scriptwriter or cartoonist; readings.

The Utopiales Ephemeral University

The Utopiales Ephemeral University opens its doors once again at the Lieu Unique. It’s an opportunity for everyone to deepen their scientific, literary and artistic knowledge by taking courses from established specialists! A real interlude to reflect and deepen our understanding of the world as it is and as it may be.

Literary Prizes

Each year, the Utopiales award three literary prizes:

• The Utopiales Prize is awarded each year to a novel or a collection of short stories published or translated into French during the literary season preceding the festival, and belonging to the SFFF genre. The prize is worth 2,000 euros, and is given each year by a jury of readers.
• The Utopiales Youth Prize is awarded each year to a novel or a collection of short stories published or translated into French during the literary season preceding the festival, in the SFFF literature genre and aimed at teenage readers. The prize is awarded by a jury of readers aged 13 to 16, and is worth 2,000 euros.
• The Utopiales Comic Prize, in partnership with the Nantes Public Library, bande is awarded each year to a comic strip published during the literary season preceding the festival. The prize, worth 2,000 euros, is awarded by the Nantes public library’s science fiction comics readers’ club.

The Festival Bookshop

A bookshop and book signings are organized every year in partnership with the association “Les Librairies Complices de Nantes”, the largest science fiction bookshop in Europe, with no fewer than 25,000 titles: novels, short stories, comics, essays and graphic books on the subject. Les Libraires Complices offer advice and suggestions to specialists and neophytes in science fiction. This is also where all author signings take place.

The Observatory of the Imaginary

Born in the wake of the États Généraux de l’Imaginaire in 2017, the Observatory of the Imaginary seeks to gather as much data as possible on the literatures of the imaginary to better understand the ecosystem in which they evolve. Each year, its members measure the production of books (new or reprinted) and the share of genres in this production, as well as the critical reception of SFFF in the generalist media talking about literature. It is also committed to providing figures on parity.

Official festival anthologies

Since the festival’s inception, an official anthology of unpublished short stories by French and international guest authors of the Utopiales has been published for each edition. Since 2018, a children’s anthology has also been published at each edition, featuring unpublished short stories by children’s authors invited to the festival, as well as the winning short stories from the previous year’s short story competition.