Festival reflections

Back to Lodève for another exciting day of readings and music, especially the Algerian poet Anissa Mohameddi who was keen to talk to me afterwards about writing in two languages - French and her Berber language, Kabyle - and about being exiled in France because of the difficulties for a woman writer in Algeria.

Lodève has an interesting history which makes it an ideal place for a festival of poetry from all around the Mediterranean. Originally a Celtic settlement, then Roman, and the Arabs reached too it during their centuries in Spain. It was a centre of the woollen industry for centuries, weaving cloth for army uniforms from the seventeenth century to the twentieth. Nowadays it's a town of cultural mixtures and a large element in the mix is the Algerian population, many of whom settled there because they had worked for the French colonial government and were unable to stay safely in Algeria after independence. It's always a busy town, but for this one week in July it buzzes with poetry, discussion and art - I love going to this festival.

The recurring image of this year's festival is the white umbrella - they are suspended all around the town. One of them is reflected in the river Soulondre in this photo. I'm afraid the umbrellas may have been prophetic because it's the first time I've ever seen rain during the festival week. There were showers today which disrupted one of my favourite events: la lecture les pied dans l'eau (literally feet in the water reading). The first time I saw this event in the programme some years ago, I thought it was a metaphor for the writers from around the Mediterranean, but when I got to it I realised that it was meant literally. The poets sit at a table on the river bank in the shadow of a beautiful old romanesque bridge while the audience sits on chairs in the water. You take your shoes off and leave them on a rock. Most years it's wonderfully cooling, but today the water was too cold and we all sat on the river bank.