Writing workshop "Building imaginary worlds", hosted by Laura N
When: 31.10.2026 15:00
Where: 48.877205, 2.370797
Organizer: Admin
Born in Orléans on 21/07/1992 to a Congolese father and a Martiniquais mother, Laura N’Safou publishes her first novel at the age of 16.
During her readings, she quickly realizes that French Black women in Europe are not represented in French feminist literature. She then creates the blog Mrs Roots and decides to devote her pen to highlighting the plurality of African and Afro‑descendant literatures and to afrofeminism in France. She also draws her inspiration from the American Black novelist Toni Morrison (1931-2019), Nobel Prize in Literature and afrofeminist activist, to whom she will pay tribute in her novel Ecrire avant l'aube (Albin Michel Jeunesse, 2025).
Since 2017, Laura N’Safou has not stopped writing. Writing to fill this representation gap that she wished she could have identified with during her readings. « Ecrire pour qu’il ne soit plus possible de dire encore une fois : je ne savais pas », she displays on her blog.
Through the life stories of her characters – such as Adé, a little girl with curly hair mocked by her classmates (Comme un million de papillons noirs, Cambourakis, 2018) or Elikia, a young woman confronted with an Africa where the sun has disappeared (trilogy Nos jours brûlés, Albin Michel, 2021) – Laura N’Safou sometimes relies on reality, often on imagination, to question racism, self‑acceptance, sisterhood, grief or even polyamory (Amours croisées then Amours croisées, celles que nous étions, Marabulles, 2022 and 2026, drawings by Camélia Blandeau), through the prism of afrofeminism.
She also recently contributed to the writing of the book Pour la joie, an ode to poetic and political resistance. A militant collective work that places joy at the heart of struggle and emancipation.
Tools for fighting for the visibility of Afro‑descendant people in Francophone literature and against stereotypes, writing and the diversity of formats that Laura N’Safou uses (novel, youth album, audiobook, comic book…) thus allow her to fill the abyss observed in the French literary landscape and testify to her prolific literary output.
Tags: author, writing, literature
Source: https://www.paris.fr/evenements/atelier-d-ecriture-construire-des-mondes-imaginaires-anime-par-laura-n-safou-114909
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