Inalco multilingual short story competition

Launched in 2019, the Inalco multilingual short story competition is open to the general public and to all French-speaking students enrolled in a school for the current year. Each year, this competition, marked by linguistic otherness, rewards original, as yet unpublished plurilingual short stories, as well as a work of plurilingual digital literature.
Visuel graphique avec des formes abstraites évoquant une carte mère d'ordinateur et un plan de métro
Concours Inalco de la nouvelle plurilingue - Langues en réseaux © Simon Lhéritier‎

How can we read the dialogue of languages - which is also the dialogue of everyday life in our globalized world - in a literary text? It's the tension between French and other languages, both those that are antipodes to it and those that are closest to it, but also between so-called "standard" or "reference" French and its social and geographical varieties (verlan, joual, Creole languages, nouchi, Marseillais, etc.) that we propose to explore in the Inalco Multilingual Short Story Competition. This competition imposes a single, decisive linguistic constraint: that of using at least one other language or variety of French in addition to so-called "standard" French.

Because of its openness to the world (over a hundred languages are taught here, including many so-called "rare" and minority languages), no venue lends itself better than Inalco to hosting such a competition. The inclusion of the first two editions of the competition within the framework of the OIF's Langues en dialogue program, which promotes a multilingual Francophonie, has reinforced this linguistic openness to French-speaking areas, where French takes on a variety of forms that are all too often invisible. It is this internal plurilingualism of languages - whose homogeneous character is only a factitious construction - and this rustling of language, in the French-speaking and digital space, that this competition aims to promote, particularly for French, whose singularity masks its diversity.

Isabelle Cros, Jury President

2026 edition: Networked languages

For the sixth edition of the competition, the theme "Networked Languages" has been chosen. From social networks to resistance networks, from AI and its neural networks to influence or transport networks... This broad theme invites us to think about the links that are woven between languages, to what they share, knot and untie, to everything that allows us not to think of them as isolated, lonely, but as alive with all these connections that bind and link them.

The deadline for submissions of texts and digital creations has been set for February 3, 2026. To find out more about how to enter and to read the rules, visit the competition website.

Jury composition

The jury, made up of outside personalities, teaching/research and administrative staff, as well as Inalco students, is set up by the Multilingual Short Story Competition organizing committee. A first jury pre-selects the best texts; the final jury, made up among others of the writers et ecrivaines sponsoring the competition, as well as personalities from the book world, representatives of Inalco and Éditions Tangentielles, chooses the three winners of the prize list and possibly awards a special mention (the Grand Jury's coup de coeur, with no award other than honorary).

The following prizes are awarded

  • 1st prize: €500
  • 2nd prize: €200
  • 3rd prize: €100
  • "Digital writing" prize: 400 €, and promotion and distribution of the work online as well as in the Editions Tangentielles book and at various events linked to the competition

The best short stories selected by the final jury, between 3 and 12 short stories, depending on the year, are published at Editions Tangentielles with editorial support. Their authors are invited to take part in a workshop led by one of the competition's sponsors or by a speaker specializing in creative writing, to prepare their text for editing and publication.

Edition 2025: Langues en folie
Edition 2024: Langues animales
Edition 2022: Langues en germe
Edition 2021: Langues en danger
Edition 2020: Langues en dialogue
CONSULT THE RULES AND CONDITIONS OF PARTICIPATION
Inalco Multilingual Short Story Competition - Rules
CONTACT

Marielle ANSELMO

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CONTACT

CONCOURS INALCO DE LA NOUVELLE PLURILINGUE

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