As a partner of the Maison Julien Gracq, organiser of the Les Préférences Festival, the Nantes Institute for Advanced Study will host a day of literary encounters with writer Hajar Azell, author of L'envers de l'été (Gallimard, 2021), on Thursday, 17 September 2026. Designed primarily for students from two classes at Collège Sophie Germain in Malakoff, these sessions are also open to the public and reflect the Institute's commitment to knowledge sharing and dialogue with younger generations.
By bringing together a contemporary author, secondary school students, and a wider audience, this stage of the festival extends the shared ambition of the Maison Julien Gracq and the Institute to make literature a space for exchange, reflection, and openness to the world.
Admission is free. Please register using this form, as places are limited.
10:15 am – 11:15 am
2:15 pm – 3:15 pm
Institut d'études avancées de Nantes
5, allée Jacques Berque
Admission is free. Please register using this form, as places are limited.
Biography
Hajar Azell is a writer born in Rabat in 1992. After studying philosophy and economics, she devoted herself to writing and teaching. From 2013 to 2020, she was editor-in-chief of Onorient, an online magazine dedicated to emerging artists from North Africa and the Middle East.
She is the author of L'envers de l'été (Gallimard, 2021, translated into Arabic), a novel exploring the unspoken dimensions of childhood, and Le sens de la fuite (Gallimard, 2025, winner of the Grande Mosquée de Paris Prize, translated into Italian), which follows the early career of a journalist during the Arab Spring. She is currently working on Tant j'ai oublié, a literary investigation centred on a Tangier-based writer who has fallen into obscurity. In different ways, the characters in her work struggle against silence in order to write their own version of history and challenge the narratives imposed by official storytellers.
L'envers de l'été (Gallimard, 2021)
"Every year, before the farewells began, Nina organised the August fig harvest. Dozens of little fingers clung to the branches, feeling the soft flesh of the fruit before pulling it free. The ground turned purple. We returned home with white sap on our fingers and the sweet, grainy taste of figs in our mouths, the unmistakable flavour of summer coming to an end."
In the large family house overlooking the Mediterranean, Gaïa has just passed away. Her granddaughter May, who grew up in France, decides to spend several months in the house before it is sold, returning outside the holiday season. As she reconnects with a country she thought she knew, she also uncovers the hidden history of the women in her family, particularly that of Nina, Gaïa's adopted daughter, who was excluded from the inheritance. The paradise of May's childhood gradually reveals itself to be marked by long-hidden wounds.
Behind the sensual beauty of its setting, Hajar Azell exposes the profound violence of family relationships and the social prohibitions that weigh most heavily on women. She also captures the hidden side of happiness, the sunlit interludes of family holidays that leave those who depart with deep nostalgia and those who remain with a lingering sense of loss.
Find out more about the 2026 Festival
