2025, Year of Jules Verne

To mark the 120th anniversary of the death of Jules Verne, the Consulate General of France in Hong Kong and Macao and the Alliance Française de Hong Kong are organizing the Jules Verne Festival from October 15 to December 5, featuring literary, educational and cultural events to pay tribute to his work.

Jules Verne, a visionary writer

Born in Nantes and died in Amiens at the age of 77, Jules Verne (1828-1905) is the most translated French writer in the world. He was also one of the first French writers to be translated into Chinese. Around the World in 80 Days reached Chinese readers as early as 1900.

After studying law and pursuing a career in finance, Jules Verne began writing plays, but it was with his first adventure novel, Five Weeks in a Balloon (1863), that he achieved success, quickly followed by Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864).

Passionate about scientific publications, Jules Verne drew inspiration from them from the outset, thanks in particular to the advice of his publisher, Pierre-Jules Hetzel. As a member of the Geographical Society, he also published works in this field, while creating links between science and literature in his stories. 

Jules Verne was not an inventor but a visionary who accurately anticipated the technical progress of the 20th century: space and interplanetary travel (From the Earth to the Moon, 1865), artificial satellites (The Begum's Fortune, 1879), exploration of the depths of the sea and the earth (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, 1869) and many others.

His Extraordinary Voyages series comprises sixty books and short stories, including all his well-known novels and a few lesser-known works such as The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (1866), which recounts an expedition to the North Pole, A Floating City (1871) and The Tribulations of a Chinese Man in China (1879). He continues to influence many authors today and to inspire film and theatre adaptations.

It should also be noted that Jules Verne like Ferdinand de Lesseps, Louis Pasteur and Ernest Renan, was one of the founding members of the Alliance Française in Paris. 

Jules Verne died on 24 March 1905, but his legacy lives on, making him a key figure in adventure and science fiction literature.