Printers, publishers and books

The latest surprising publishing adventure in Lausanne was undoubtedly that of La Cité Editeur, the militant publishing house run by Nils Andersson – ultimately deported in 1967 – who published everything that his French associates couldn’t dream of printing. One example is Henri Alleg’s La Question, a book reporting the torture that took place during the Algerian war. It caused scandal and for a long time secretly circulated in France.

Gaining independence from Paris

In the 20^th century, Lausanne’s publishing business was booming. For example, Les Cahiers was founded in Vaud in 1914 by Paul Budry and Edmond Gilliard, who included the writings of Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz in their first edition and later published Gustave Roud and René Morax. One of their goals was clearly to gain independence from Paris by opening up to the literature and language of this part of the country. The year 1929 marked the beginning of Henry-Louis Mermod’s weekly literary magazine Aujourd’hui, edited by Ramuz. It did not last long, but the Editions Mermod soon followed, which published Ramuz and later Philippe Jaccottet. During World War II and the Occupation, censored French authors were published by Lausanne houses like Marguerat and Ides et Calendes.

Meanwhile, interest in reading was fuelled by La Guilde du Livre, founded by Albert Mermoud in 1936. It was a membership club with low prices for books to make them more accessible. Successful for decades, La Guilde had a worthy competitor in Editions Rencontre, which was established in 1950 and sold up to 200,000 books annually through subscriptions. Other similar initiatives (The Book of the Month and La Bibliothèque Romande) popularized local literature among a still sometimes timid population. In the interwar period, major Lausanne printers attracted major art publishers, Skira and Gonin being the most famous.

Rebirth