The festival  »  Presentation

There is no frontier.
but in man's eyes.

Josyane De Jesus-Bergey (France)

Founded 21 years ago and settled in Sète for 9 years now, the Festival is very happy to present a first edition in Palestine and to host numerous poets from all the Mediterranean in the city, for a duration of 4 days.
It wishes to open, to a large number of people, a broader territory of poetry, thereby inviting the public to discover contemporary poetry, to hear different cultures that own a common geography and history regardless of the present tensions and tragedies.

Voix Vives, a Festival from Mediterranean to Mediterranean
Although it is mainly dedicated to the poets coming from all parts of the Mediterranean (Latin countries,  Balkans, Eastern parts, North Africa), the Festival is also open to all of the Mediterranean cultures around the world that history has "exported" overseas: South and Central Americas, West or East Africa, Francophony countries… Within this geographically broad platform the words of the poets, being immediately authentic, favour meeting and sharing.

Edition of the Festival in Ramallah, the heart of Palestine
We have the pleasure of organizing a Palestinian edition of VOIX VIVES in Ramallah. This edition echoes the reality of this city, anchored in the history of the Mediterranean and symbolically evocative of a people’s identity.
The numerous voices of poets from all shores will be affirmed as numerous ways of bridging different Mediterranean cultures, of opening territories to the words of contemporary poets.
More than thirty poets from all parts of the Mediterranean are invited in Ramallah.
Surrounded by musicians, actors, the poets convey poetry as a territory of peace, of encounters, of sharing, of meeting different cultures. They demonstrate also that poetry is addressing all the people; that the words of the poets are of the greatest interest to us for they are also our own words.

Publications
A program in Arabic and in English is freely distributed to the public.
An anthology is published, which collects texts of all the poets invited at the Festival. It is multilingual, with the poems in the original mother tongue together with their translation in Arabic. A short biography of each author is also included.