The 2016 Puterbaugh Festival of International Literature & Culture invites Alain Mabanckou, a novelist, journalist, poet, and academic French citizen born in the Republic of the Congo and winner of the Renaudot Prize in 2006. The festival includes a film screening of Homeland by Mohamed Hamidi, francophone world workshop lectures, a francophone literature and bilingual roundtable as well as the 2016 Puterbaugh keynote lecture on "The Song of the Migrating Bird: for a World Literature in French" by Alain Mabanckou.

Albertine, the renowned French reading room and bookshop in New York that opened in September 2014, has expanded its high quality literary offerings with a selection of nearly 28,000 French language ebooks now available on its website. Eighty-eight French publishers, including some of France’s most respected publishing houses such as Gallimard, Flammarion, Minuit and Actes Sud, are represented among the ebook collection, which will continue to grow in the coming months.

In September, the Visual Arts Center of the University of Texas at Austin will present Tania Mouraud: Regards, a video and sound installation by French artist Tania Mouraud. Her work immerses audiences in environmental sites normally removed from the public's everyday experience. Tania Mouraud will create a new work that engages with Texas' position as a world leader in energy production.

Prominent national and international art dealers and galleries will exhibit painting, sculpture, works on paper, photography, video, and installation by modern and contemporary artists at the eighth annual Dallas Art Fair including 3 galleries from France: Galerie Frank Elbaz, Galerie Perrotin and Galerie Valentin.

The current refugee crisis in Europe, the most serious one since the end of World War II, has brought into sharp relief the question of outsiders. How are “foreigners and strangers” perceived and represented in public and private discourses, and in literary and artistic works? What is their juridical status in the countries where they find themselves, either temporarily or seeking more permanent residence? Featured guest speaker Susan Rubin Suleiman, C. Douglas Dillon Research Professor of the Civilization of France at Harvard University, will discuss Foreigners and Strangers: Jews in France between the two World Wars.

Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy holds a conference on Arab Uprisings: How Dictators and Jihadis Struck Back with the participation of Jean-Pierre Filiu, French author and professor of Middle East studies at Sciences Po, Paris School of International Affairs. Filiu will discuss his book, From Deep State to Islamic State: The Arab Counter-Revolution and Its Jihadist Legacy, which describes how authoritarian regimes are methodically crushing Arab dissent, and hopes for democracy.

The River Oaks Theater presents Xavier Giannoli’s Marguerite, a satirical tragicomedy set in France in the 1920s, starring Catherine Frot (The Dinner Game, Family Resemblances) as Marguerite Dumont, an eccentric and exceedingly wealthy would-be opera diva.

The Office for Science and Technology of the French Embassy in Houston and the Rice University Baker Institute for Science and Technology Policy organizes a screening of French filmmaker Luc Jacquet's documentary Ice and the Sky in presence of scientific director and world-renowned glaciologist Dr. Jérôme Chappellaz.

As part of Fotofest 2016 Biennale, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston will also screen this documentary set in Antarctica which delves into the incredible story of Dr. Claude Lorius, a pioneering French glaciologist who began studying Antarctic ice in the 1950s, and in 1965, was among the first scientists to become concerned about the impact of human activity on our climate.

Music Box Films presents master director Alexander Sokurov’s Francofonia, a stunning and urgently relevant meditation on the essential relationship between art, culture, and history.

This Museum of Fine Arts, Houston screening is the first presentation of Lebanon: of Wars and Men in the U.S. Frédéric Laffont’s documentary underscores, through the story of the Lebanese war, the complicated politics of the region and its susceptibility to proxy wars. There will be a Q&A session at the conclusion of the film with professor Jean-Pierre Filiu, followed by a reception.

New Faces of French Animation, a program launched by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the US and Canada in 2015, offers non-commercial theaters a selection of short animated films that were presented at the most recent Annecy International Animation Film Festival and is returning in 2016 for its second year.

ARTE, the European culture channel, now offers a selection of programmes subtitled in English on www.arte.tv/en and in Spanish on www.arte.tv/es, alongside French and German.

Thank you all for taking part in the 2016 French Cultures Festival throughout the month of March in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas and for attending the kick-off Concert on March 11 at Discovery Green in Houston! Check out the pictures of the event HERE.

Don't miss French bands touring accross Texas and Arkansas:

M83 in Dallas, Houston & Austin on 04/08-10 | Klingande in Austin on 04/10 | DJ Snake and Malaa in Dallas, TX on 04/15 | Lo'Jo in Austin on 04/15 & 16 | Dirtyphonics in Austin, Houston & Dallas on 04/19, 20 & 28 | Brodinski in El Paso, TX and Pierre Bensusan in Little Rock, AR on 04/21 | Imarhan in San Antonio, TX and Austin, TX on 04/28 & 29 | Cedric Gervais in Austin, TX and Emel Mathlouthi in Dallas, TX on 04/30