From April 24 to 27, Montreal’s own Blue Metropolis international literary festival will feature a comprehensive lineup of over 160 authors and artists from around the world, all taking place at downtown’s Hotel 10.
Under the theme of Time, the Tree, the Page, this year’s lineup includes conversations with none other than Salman Rushdie, Peter Wohlleben, and Simon Sebag Montefiore, along with an impressive selection of interviews, readings, cocktail evenings, performances, roundtables, workshops, and more.
Here are a few highlights of what’s to come:
- Salman Rushdie will receive the Blue Metropolis 2025 International Literary Grand Prix for his life’s work, which uses literature and imagination as a means to fight back.
- British novelist and historian Simon Sebag Montefiore will be awarded the Blue Metropolis Words to Change Prize, notably for his latest book, which looks at the world through the lens of famous families who have shaped our history.
- This year’s Blue Metropolis Planet Literature Prize goes to German author Peter Wohlleben, a forester and friend to trees whose book The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate remains a worldwide phenomenon.
- The very first international edition of the First Peoples’ Prize will be awarded to Pikunis (Blackfoot) Nation writer Stephen Graham Jones.
- France Daigle will be awarded the Blue Metropolis Violet Prize for lifetime achievement in Canadian queer literature, recognizing her work in Acadia and the French-speaking world.
- Eleanor Wachtel will interview novelists Madeleine Thien and Claire Messud.
- The Literature and Indigenous Voices program welcomes Liliana Ancalao (Patagonia, Mapuche, Mapuzung), Joséphine Bacon (nutshimit/Québec, Innu), Fiorella Boucher (Uruguay/Québec, Guarani), Niigaan Sinclair (Winnipeg/Little Peguis, Anishinaabe), Nelly Duvicq (Nunavik), and Coltrane Seesequasis (Gatineau, Willow Cree).
- 2024 Giller Prize winner Anne Michaels will discuss the joys of translation with her own translator, Dominique Fortier, and invited guests.
- Other featured attendees include: Zibby Owens (USA), Davide Longo (Italy), Julia Malye (France), David Chariandy (Canada), Mateo García Elizondo (Mexico), François Kersaudy (France), Felipe Restrepo Pombo (Colombia), and more.
The TD-Blue Metropolis Children’s Festival will also be taking place at the same time, at the Maisons de la culture as well as libraries across Montreal.
The full festival program can be found here. Tickets for individual events start at $8, and the Festival Pass is available at a special price of $30 until April 14 (regular price $50).
