Republic of Consciousness Award Winner 2025 Gaëlle Bélem in conversation with one of her translators Laëtitia Saint-Loubert

Whether Sainte-Suzanne in 1829 or the streets of La Réunion in the 1980s, Gaëlle Bélem’s highly acclaimed fiction is ‘driven by a wild, offbeat humour that manages to satirize the very notion of freedom available in this French territory, where the brilliance of a young orphan’s prodigious work unlocking the secrets of the island’s orchids can too often go unrecognized.’ Published by one of Ireland’s most visionary publishers with whom she won The Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses in 2025, Gaëlle Bélem has also been awarded the Grand prix du roman métis, the Société des gens de lettres André-Dubreuil prize for a first novel and been longlisted for the International Booker Prize. She is joined today by one of her translators Laëtitia Saint-Loubert, literary translator specializing in Caribbean and Indian Ocean literature.

Thursday 23 April 2026

City Library | 4pm | Free