Montolieu, the village of books and graphic arts

Today, the village of Montolieu with its fifteen book shops, museum-conservatory and arts and crafts workshops needs no introduction…

Between the foothills of the Black Mountains and south of the Minervois, near the Brousses and Villaret paper mills, Montolieu (Aude) unfurls between two steep gorges. Surrounded by vineyards dotted with little drystone huts, Montolieu has acquired a myriad bookshops, arts and crafts stores and a Museum of book arts and professions.
Everything here is geared to reading, the discovery of paper, traditional printing and binding. Workshops invite you to conduct real book-based projects. The book village was created on the initiative of Michel Braibant, a bookbinder based in Carcassonne, who set out to build a book village reminiscent of Britain’s Hay-on-Wye in or Belgium’s Redu. The project took shape in the late eighties.

From old books, works of art and comic books to encyclopaedias, the "Village of Books and Graphic Arts" invites to visitors to share its love of books, browsing, winding through the streets and bookshops of the village and its Museum of the book arts and professions, open all year for a fascinating journey through the history of the book, from the birth of writing and the history of writing materials, to the great adventure of printing.

Musée des Arts et des Métiers du Livre
Rue de la Mairie
11170 MONTOLIEU
Tél : + 33 (0)4 68 24 80 04
Site web: http://www.montolieu-livre.fr
Mail : montolieuvdl@orange.fr