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I We were a couple of minutes late for the panel we’d hoped to attend The doors were closed and there was a surly-looking man standing guard next to a sign that read ‘Complet’ – ‘Full’ No more room A stubby line of six or so people had formed behind him   ‘Vous êtes là pour “Je est un autre”?’ we asked   ‘Yes,’ the guard replied ‘Is it really full?’   ‘Yes,’ he said   ‘And for members of the press?’ I brandished my pass, appealing to the guard’s sense of professionalism and media savvy   ‘C’est complet’   My friend Elisabeth and I had travelled from Paris to Brittany to check out the Etonnants Voyageurs (Astonishing Travellers) literary festival in Saint Malo, created by Michel Le Bris in 1990 Every year, around sixty writers converge there to celebrate well, what exactly we’re not sure, but it’s got something to do with travel literature, francophone literature, and Russians In 2009, when I was researching a piece on the French literary milieu, all anyone could talk about was this festival and the movement associated with it: littérature-monde   ‘French literature is opening outward,’ I was told ‘Just look at the success of the Etonnants Voyageurs festival’ This was all the encouragement I needed to book a spot on the TGV to the 2010 edition, which was dedicated to Russian literature, Haitian literature, and the theme of the organisers’ new book, Je est un autre – I is Other Of all the literary festivals in France – and there are hundreds – this one is the most political, and the most controversial This is in part because Le Bris and Jean Rouaud were the major voices behind a 2007 manifesto, ‘Pour une littérature-monde en français’ (Towards a World Literature in French), which ran in Le Monde and was followed by an anthology of the same title   Signed by forty-four writers including JMG Le Clézio, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Maryse Condé, Nancy Huston, and Edouard Glissant, the manifesto’s argument was twofold: first, that French literature ought not to be divided into ‘French’ (for work produced by writers born in France) and ‘francophone’ (read: those