M Festival, July 25-26, Nanteuil-en-Vallee – The Programme

Posted: July 17th, 2026 | No Comments »

If you have find memories the old M on the Bund and Captial M literary festivals in China then you may like to know it’s all happening again this July 25/26, and this time it’s in the beautiful village of Nanteuil-en-Vallee, Charente, in France. Details and programme all here – https://m-restaurantgroup.com/m-festival-nanteuil-programme/

The weekend line up includes: Alan Hollinghurst, Amy Tan, Fuchsia Dunlop, Marie NDaiye, Victor Mallet, Anne Sebba, Simone Gelin, Tash Aw, Aube Rey Lescure, Yin Myo Su, Helen Scales, Harriet Welty Rochefort, Aaliyah Bilal, Philip Eisenbeiss, Philip Marcovici, Ross Garnaut,  Nick Bonner,  Bénédicte Charpiat, Jonathan Kerr, Frédéric Lemaître, Edward Denison, and Ren Guang Yu.

I’ll be doing a couple of events:

Bienvenue à La Concession Française de Shanghai – Shanghai’s French Concession (1849–1943) was always more cosmopolitan, more raffish, and, frankly, more corrupt. Within its borders were Shanghai’s wildest nightclubs, a concentration of Russian émigrés on a street known as “Little Odessa”, and all the city’s legendary Chinese gangs. Paul French (City of Devils: A Shanghai Noir) introduces a cast of characters that once inhabited La Concession from Shanghai Godfather Du Yuesheng to Sûreté chief Louis Fabre, the Parisian and Corsican mobsters who bolt-holed in Frenchtown, to the courageous Shanghai Free French of WWII.

And with Anne Sebba – The Extraordinary Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor – A unique opportunity to hear Anne Sebba (That Woman) and Paul French (Her Lotus Year) together to discuss the extraordinary life of Wallis Simpson. From her notorious yet little-known time in 1920s China, to the dramatic events of the Abdication Crisis and the long years of exile as the Duchess of Windsor, this conversation promises fresh insights into one of the 20th century’s most controversial women.

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