Every year in May, the Étonnants Voyageurs festival is attended by around 250 authors from all five continents and nearly 60,000 visitors who come to Saint-Malo for three days of meetings, debates, literary cafés, film screenings and exhibitions about ways of life and the world in which we live.
Since its creation in 1990, Étonnants Voyageurs has established itself as one of France's greatest literary festivals. World-famous writers from all over, like Jim Harrison, Hugo Pratt, Russell Banks, James Welch, J.M.G. Le Clézio and Alvaro Mutis have previously come to meet their audience in Saint-Malo. Several prizes are awarded during the festival, including the Joseph-Kessel award, created in 1991 to honour works written in France in the same vein as the eponymous author, and the Grand prix de l'Imaginaire award for speculative fiction, open to novels of all nationalities.
The festival also hosts a book fair where readers can have their books signed by the authors.