Literary Breakfast

The taste of words, the aroma of coffee, the warmth of conversation: an event at the Valais–Sion Media Library that pairs literature with jam—delicious discussions about the latest literary trends in French-speaking Switzerland and beyond.What if madness could be seen as a form of defiance against a social order that is dysfunctional, marginalizing, and exclusionary? To discuss this, the Valais–Sion Media Library invites you to meet two authors who have written a highly acclaimed debut novel.Our guests: Sarah Orokieta, a Valais-based author of *Rapport d’activité* (published by Zoé in 2026), has written a novel in the form of a diary—filled with caustic humor—kept by a computer scientist who is as rational as he is out of step with society.This debut novel defies expectations and conventions to fully embrace the logic of its narrator: a man who strives to understand others and to guess what is expected of him. But beyond his inner world, what this atypical, disjointed voice—by turns funny and poignant—evokes is the contemporary world, with its violence, hopes, contradictions, and absurdity. Olivier Vonlanthen grew up in Fribourg, where he still lives today. After studying French literature and art history, he turned to teaching at the middle school level. In 2022, his first collection of poems, *Ossuaires*, earned him the C.F. Ramuz Poetry Prize. In 2025, his first novel, *Notre-Dame-des-Démolies*, was published by Éditions La Veilleuse. This novel revisits a tragic news story that took place in 1968 in Montpellier, where Marthe, a lady’s companion, murdered the baroness for whom she worked with nine stab wounds before being committed to a psychiatric hospital. The story is pieced together in fragments in this powerful debut noir novel. Moderator: Stéphanie Schwitter Glassey, author and therapist. Next Literary Breakfast: December 12, 2026, 10 a.m., marking the 100th anniversary of Rilke’s death, featuring Herr Dr. Marcel Lepper, former curator of the Rilke Foundation in Sierre, Anne Salamin, actress, and Dani Mangisch, actor. The discussion will take place at the Trait d’union restaurant. Participants can have breakfast on site starting at 9:30 a.m. and enjoy pairing literature with jam! Reservations

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