Mission
To promote African books and arts, whether traditional or contemporary, to a wide audience.
First edition · 20–23 August 2026
African books and arts in the heart of Lausanne
Four days at Montbenon: books, voices, slam poetry, exhibitions and many encounters. The first edition is a wrap — thank you to everyone who brought it to life. We are already preparing what comes next, and we need you.
The festival
An international festival dedicated to African books and arts
Built around a community of book and art lovers, as well as young readers, FILAA aims to promote African books and arts in all their diversity. Organised in Lausanne, a Swiss city open to the world, the festival highlights the essential role of authors, creators and craft artists while contributing to the visibility of African publishing.
Who is behind FILAA?Vision
To make Lausanne an annual reference point in Switzerland for African books and African artistic expression.
Values
Sharing, diversity, inclusion and enjoyment are at the heart of the FILAA experience.
Join FILAA
So, what will FILAA become?
The committee came together only one month before the first edition. We now have a whole year to do even better — and no intention of hibernating until then.
Coming up: book presentations, collaborations with biennials and festivals on the African continent, and events around Lausanne. To make it happen, we are looking right now for:
- 01Lovers of Afro-descendant literature
You read, you recommend, you want to share the work of women and men writers.
- 02People with literary knowledge
A taste for and knowledge of literature, to help build the programme and host conversations.
- 03Social media
Book reviews, discussions, behind the scenes: keeping our accounts alive all year round.
- 04Graphic design
Posters, social media visuals, the look of the 2027 edition.
- 05Volunteers for the 2027 edition
Welcoming the public, bookshop, stage set-up, logistics: more details as the festival approaches.
FILAA patron
A message from Véronique Tadjo
As patron of the first FILAA edition, Véronique Tadjo invites the public to discover African books and arts as spaces for encounter, freedom and sharing.
Read the patron’s message
2026 guests
Their faces, their words
Photographer Giorgia portrayed the artists who joined us this year. Each of them wrote a sentence by hand, directly on their photo.
See all the portraits
Books
What we read
Books by our guests and the favourites the FILAA bookshop shares on social media.
See the full selection
La plus secrète mémoire des hommes
Paris, 2018. Diégane Latyr Faye, a young Senegalese writer, meets his compatriot Siga D. This provocative woman in her sixties hands him The Labyrinth of the Inhuman, a book published in 1938 by a certain T.C. Elimane. Captivated, Diégane sets out on the trail of this mysterious man. Winner of the 2021 Prix Transfuge for best French-language novel, the 2021 Prix Goncourt and the 2021 Prix Hennessy du livre. Mohamed Mbougar Sarr is a Senegalese-French novelist, born in Dakar on 20 June 1990. In 2021, he became the youngest winner of the Prix Goncourt since 1976 with The Most Secret Memory of Men. His major works include Terre ceinte (2015), Silence du chœur (2017), De purs hommes (2018) and The Most Secret Memory of Men (2021).
La fabrique du merveilleux
Presentation and book signing at FILAA on Saturday 22 August 2026.
Peau noire, masques blancs
In this essay, first published in 1971, the author examines relations between Black and white people and the question of racism, which has lost none of its relevance despite decolonisation. He discusses the dependency complex of the colonised, and the links between the Black man and language, between white men and women and men and women of colour, between the Black man and psychopathology, the Black man and recognition, and more. Frantz Fanon was a Martinican psychiatrist and essayist, born on 20 July 1925 in Fort-de-France, Martinique. Through his writings, such as The Wretched of the Earth and Black Skin, White Masks, and through his actions, notably as head physician of a ward at the Blida-Joinville psychiatric hospital in Algeria, Frantz Fanon remains one of the major figures of the anticolonial struggle on the eve of independence.
Colon ne s’écrit pas au féminin
Presented at FILAA on Sunday 23 August 2026, in a conversation led by Michel Ndeze.
Partners
They make FILAA possible
2026 edition
In pictures
A few moments from the first edition. The full gallery is on its own page.
Contact
A question, an idea, or want to take part?
Write to the FILAA team using this form, or directly by email. We will reply as soon as possible.
Festival venueEsplanade et Casino de Montbenon
Allée Ernest-Ansermet 3
1003 Lausanne
Phone+41 78 824 54 94
Social media