In what sense is nature still a source of inspiration? How are the metamorphoses of nature in the world today represented in different ways in fiction? Where does nature fit in between emotional, cultural and political realities?

Born in Tours in 1964, Stéphane Audeguy has taught the history of cinema and of the Arts. He is the author of seven books, for which he has been awarded a number of important literary prizes, namely La théorie de nuages (Gallimard) and Fils unique (Gallimard). His latest book, Nous autres, plunges the reader into the middle of the Kenyan countryside, in an Africa which is far removed from the usual clichés.

The American Rick Bass is a geologist and a novelist. His novels depict the virginal splendours of a far-flung America, featuring moving and engaging characters. This lover and protector of nature, close to McGuane and Jim Harrison, takes his inspiration from the landscapes of South America and Montana where he currently lives. Yet, this majestic and wild nature which he describes with such lyricism and sensitivity is threatened by man, the great destroyer. Rick Bass’s work is above all a desperate cry to save our planet.

The short story writer and novelist, Neil Bissoondath, was born in Trinidad in 1955. He emigrated to Canada in 1973 and has been living in Quebec for the several years now. He is the author of several novels and short-story collections, as well as of a powerful essay on Canadian multiculturalism, Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada. Several of his novels explore the theme of insularity, such as his novel, The Unyielding Clamour of the Night, where an imaginary island, covered by a luxuriant tropical forest, is the site of bloody clashes between a state army and rebels who are fighting for their independence.

Jørn Riel was born in Denmark in 1931. After having spent sixteen years in Greenland as an ethnographer, he has published more than twenty books, notably his famous Arctic tales. All his fiction is set in the frozen and marvelous landscapes of Greenland, yet it explores darker themes such as those of solitude, extreme cold and survival in this powerful and hostile environment. These days, Jørn Riel lives in Malaysia so that he can ‘thaw out’, as he likes to say.