Blue Metropolis is back
with Salman Rushdie

Literary get-together celebrates the written word and the authors and poets that bring it to life

By Irwin Rapoport

Edited, April 25, 2025

A sure sign of Spring in Montreal is the annual Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival, one of the largest multilingual literary events in North America, bringing together contemporary and renowned authors from across the globe. Until April 27, attendees will be treated to live interviews, round-table discussions, public readings, performances, writing workshops and cocktail evenings.

This year’s festival features more than 160 authors and artists in 120 events, many of which are free, in no fewer than eight languages. Renowned authors Salman Rushdie, Peter Wohlleben and Simon Sebag Montefiore will be among the literati holding court.

The Festival continues to program Literature and Indigenous Voices, Peace and War, Queer Voices, Almemar (Jewish literature and culture), Women and Words, Ecology and Literature, Azul (Spanish and Portuguese), Bold and Creative, esteemed Literary Prizes to notable foreign and Canadian authors, and the TD-Blue Metropolis Children’s Festival.

Renowned authors Salman Rushdie, Peter Wohlleben and Simon Sebag Montefiore will be among the literati holding court.

The Festival kicks things off with Blue Met Talks and the opening ceremony cocktail featuring eleven captivating, top-tier Festival participants.

Marie-Andrée Lamontagne, director of programming and communications, is enthusiastic about new initiatives spicing up the programming. “We’re thrilled with the Romance, Fantasy and Other Imaginary series, and the Serenity Series, featuring among others, yoga, poetry and Tibetan bowls as ways to find inner calm,” she said. “The series also offers a literary brunch in the form of a free workshop exploring mental health for children and the young at heart.” Other 2025 series additions include Literature of Our Times and Governor General’s Awards.

Simon Sebag Montefiore – Image: Marcus Leoni

Festivals are structured around strong themes that bear testimony to keen social awareness and a passion for literature in all its richness.

“This year’s theme is ‘Time, the Tree, the Page’,” states the press release. “How long does it take a tree to grow? To ask this question is to ask about one’s relationship with time. Writing takes time, so does reading. Along with time, trees will be at the heart of this year’s edition. Trees tell us as much about ourselves as they do about the state of our climate. This grand plant comes in a great variety of species and reflects the diversity of human beings, who should also be able to coexist and grow together in harmony in our forest world.”

Salman Rushdie is being honoured with the Blue Metropolis 2025 International Literary Grand Prix. In his latest book, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, Rushdie writes that literature is the only weapon he has ever possessed.

‘Festivals are structured around strong themes that bear testimony to keen social awareness and a passion for literature in all its richness.’

Internationally renowned British historian, novelist and essayist Simon Sebag Montefiore receives this year’s Blue Metropolis Words to Change Prize. His novels and essays on Russia, Stalin and Empress Catherine, and his biography of the city of Jerusalem, are worldwide bestsellers. Montefiore‘s most recent book, The World: A Family History of Humanity, tells the story of humanity from Neanderthal to Donald Trump, as seen through the prism of famous families who have shaped our history: the Caesars, Medici, Bonapartes, Habsburgs, Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Kennedys.

This year, Blue Metropolis is inaugurating the international edition of the First Peoples’ Prize to recognize the vibrancy of Indigenous cultures that is taking place worldwide. The first winner is American author Stephen Graham Jones of the Pikunis (Blackfoot) Nation, who lives and teaches in Boulder, Colorado. His work comprises some thirty crime fiction novels, short stories, graphic novels and horror novels, including The Only Good Indians, My Heart is a Chainsaw and Don’t Fear the Reaper.

First-time novelists from the Rendez-vous du Premier roman de l’UNEQ and the Festival du Premier Roman de Chambéry, Emmanuelle Pierrot (La version qui n’intéresse personne) for Quebec, and the French Moroccan novelist Soufiane Khaloua (La Vallée des Lazhars), winner of the Québec-France-Marie-Claire Blais Prize, will be on hand.

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Peter Wohlleben – Image: Tobias Wohlleben

German author Peter Wohlleben has shared his passion for nature and all living things by making his scientific knowledge accessible to the general public. He is deeply involved in the preservation of forests and trees in Germany and around the world. His events at the Festival include an exchange with Anishinaabe author, journalist and University of Manitoba professor Niigaan Sinclair on Indigenous and non-Indigenous visions of the forest. Wohlleben will be receiving the Blue Metropolis Planet Literature Prize.

Peter Wohlleben graciously responded to a few questions:

WM: The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World was criticized by biologists and forest researchers when it was published. To what extent are your critics changing their tunes, and do you believe that more people are embracing the message?

Wohlleben: The criticism comes mainly from the forestry lobby – state forestry agencies are often staffed by forestry scientists, and in many countries these agencies are the largest sellers of wood. They don’t like it when people feel sorry for trees and forests and advocate a gentler approach, such as avoiding clear-cutting. Research has progressed to such an extent that even these people can no longer deny the wood-wide-web or the social relationships between trees. Incidentally, the amazing things about plants have been known for a long time. Charles Darwin, for example, wrote an entire book about their abilities, including the fact that the brain of a plant is located in the tips of its roots.

WM: It’s a given that animals are sentient and have a full range of emotions, ask anyone who has a cat or dog and those who study various species of animals, and The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion- Surprising Observations of a Hidden World was seminal in raising awareness for millions of creatures that we share the earth with. How would you describe the impact of this book?

Wohlleben: I think that, on the one hand, people are treating animals with more respect and, on the other hand, they are simply rediscovering their sense of wonder and joy at our fellow creatures. For a long time, humans were arrogant and regarded animals as little more than automatons. Today, we know that even jumping spiders can dream, for example. It is information like this that makes us appreciate the world around us more. And we protect what we appreciate.

‘German author Peter Wohlleben has shared his passion for nature and all living things by making his scientific knowledge accessible to the general public.’

WM: The Power of Trees delivers an important message to all of humanity. Is it getting through to world leaders and the general public, and is there hope for the long-term survival of the forests in Sumatra, Borneo, New Guinea, Central Africa, the Amazon River Basin, Australia, Canada, Russia, and other nations?

Wohlleben: The message is slow to get through in politics. Forest protection is seen as “nice to have,” even though we know that forests are crucial in the fight against climate change. They produce low clouds that act like snow and reflect the sun’s rays back into space. Deforestation is also reducing this cloud layer, which explains the significant rise in temperature in 2023 and 2024. Fortunately, forest cover (not plantation cover) can be increased again at any time – we just need to finally get started.

WM: Why is it so important to protect individual trees, forests large and small, and to plant trees wherever we can, especially in light of climate change?

Wohlleben: Trees not only produce clouds, they also cool their surroundings. A single large tree can cool as many as 1,000 refrigerators running simultaneously through water evaporation in summer. In the garden, a large deciduous tree can reduce the temperature in summer by 1°C to 6°C – and that’s not just because of the shade. Try it out for yourself in summer: sit under a parasol and then under a large, old tree – you’ll feel the cooler air immediately.

WM: How would you describe your writing style, and what is the subject of your next book?

Wohlleben: I don’t explain nature, I describe and narrate it. Studies have shown that people remember facts that are narrated to them much better than those that are explained, because they go to the heart rather than the brain.

My next book will revolve around the question of whether we humans are also a normal part of nature, just like trees and forest animals, and whether we are driven more by instinct than by reason. If we function more on emotions (and it certainly looks that way), then we should also pursue environmental policy in a much more emotional way. I will present solutions for this.