📍 Alliance Française of Banjul
📅 April 2025
The Alliance Française of Banjul is proud to host, for the second consecutive year, the writing residency for the FESTHI.
The FESTHI (Inter-school Theater Festival), supported by the French Embassy in Senegal and The Gambia, has been held in these two countries for four years. This festival allows thousands of students, from primary school to high school, to perform plays written during a writing residency by Francophone authors.
In April 2025, three authors will be welcomed in residence in Banjul to write new plays for young Senegalese and Gambian audiences.
🎭 2025 Theme: “Create, Innovate, and Undertake in French”
These plays will be illustrated, edited, and distributed free of charge to participating classes in Senegal and The Gambia.
Author and Photographer
Amina Jules Dia is a young Senegalese author and photographer. Her first book, a fictional novel titled La louve incomprise, was published by L’Harmattan in 2023.
She has participated in various creation and writing residencies, such as the one at Villa Ndar of the French Institute of Saint-Louis (Senegal) and the one organized as part of CINEFEMFEST.
Defining herself in a poetic space at the crossroads of language and visual storytelling, she has also exhibited her photographs in Toubab Dialaw, Saint-Louis (Senegal), and in several collective exhibitions in Dakar (Vivre en lien, Reset yourself).
Playwright, Poet, and Director
Kouam Tawa resides in Bafoussam (Cameroon), where he leads the theater troupe La Compagnie Feugham and the cultural space La’akam (Laboratoire artistique du Kamer).
🔹 More than 30 books published, mostly for young audiences
🔹 Winner of the ACCT Prize for African Literature for Young People, the Lire et faire Lire Poetry Prize, and other distinctions
🔹 Plays performed in Africa, France, Canada, and Japan
He has conducted writing and dramaturgy workshops in a dozen Francophone countries.
Author and Slam Poet
Originally from Dassa-Zoumé (Benin), Adebayo Adjaho took his first steps in the literary world with the blog Biscottes Littéraires.
In 2018, he won the National Slam and Poetry Competition of Benin and represented his country at the African Slam and Poetry Cup in Chad.
Between 2018 and 2023, he dedicated himself to slam while developing his dramatic writing, creating plays such as Les grands guignols de l’invisible and La gâchette.
In 2024, he contributed to the writing of the collection Xanu Xami and wrote Les oubliables during a writing residency in Benin. His play has already been performed more than twenty times and was presented at the Rencontres Théâtre Jeune Public Festival in Benin in August 2024.
Practical information:
👉🏼 April 1 – April 30, 2025
📍 Alliance Française de Banjul