Mohamed Mbougar Sarr

A viral video captures an enraged crowd in Dakar digging up a dead man’s grave to punish him for being gay. Disturbed by the footage, Ndéné, a French literature professor, begins investigating the life of the man labelled a góor-jigéen—a term used in Senegal for men who defy conventional expectations of masculinity. His search takes him into a hidden world of queer lives, where he encounters both persecution and extraordinary resilience. Although Ndéné initially shares many of the prejudices surrounding him, the people he meets force him to question his own beliefs, identity, and place in society. Set against the tensions between religious conservatism, social conformity, and individual freedom, this provocative novel examines the human cost of intolerance and asks what it truly means to be a man.

A forgotten masterpiece. A disgraced writer. A mystery that spans continents and generations. In Paris in 2018, young Senegalese novelist Diégane Latyr Faye discovers a legendary 1938 novel by T.C. Elimane, an African writer once celebrated as the “Black Rimbaud” before a plagiarism scandal destroyed his reputation and drove him into obscurity. Fascinated, Diégane sets out to uncover the truth about Elimane’s disappearance, following a trail from Senegal to France and Argentina. His search leads him into the darker corners of literary history, where colonialism, cultural prejudice, and the politics of recognition determine whose voices are remembered and whose are erased. Blending literary mystery with historical investigation, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr’s acclaimed novel is both a meditation on the power of storytelling and a passionate tribute to literature’s ability to transcend borders. Winner of France’s prestigious Prix Goncourt, it asks who gets to define literary greatness—and what it costs to pursue it.