At Night All Blood is Black
Senegal

At Night All Blood is Black

by David Diop

War & Conflict Historical Fiction 2020

Summary

During the First World War, Alfa Ndiaye, a young Senegalese soldier fighting for the French army, watches his childhood friend and fellow soldier, Mademba, suffer a horrific battlefield injury. Mademba repeatedly begs Alfa to end his suffering, but Alfa cannot bring himself to deliver the fatal blow. Haunted by guilt and the memory of his friend’s agony, Alfa begins a terrifying transformation. Night after night, he ventures into enemy territory, killing German soldiers in increasingly brutal ways and returning to camp with their severed hands. His fellow soldiers grow frightened of him, whispering that he has become something beyond human. As Alfa’s violence intensifies, the boundaries between courage and madness, revenge and remorse, begin to dissolve. Through his increasingly fragmented narration, Diop exposes the psychological devastation of war and the dehumanising legacy of colonialism. Drawing on Senegal’s history of supplying soldiers to the French army, this haunting novel challenges conventional narratives of heroism and examines the terrible cost of turning human beings into instruments of violence. It won the 2021 International Booker Prize, shared by Diop and translator Anna Moschovakis.

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Country
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About the author
David Diop
David Diop

David Diop is a French-Senegalese novelist and academic, born in Paris in 1966 and raised in Senegal. He is a professor of eighteenth-century French literature at the University of Pau in southwestern France, where his research explores European representations of Africa and the history of travel writing. Diop made his literary debut with 1889, l’Attraction universelle (2012), a historical novel about a Senegalese delegation visiting the Paris Universal Exposition. His second novel, At Night All Blood Is Black (Frère d’âme, 2018), brought him international recognition. Inspired in part by his great-grandfather’s service in the French army during the First World War, the novel examines the psychological trauma of combat and the experiences of Senegalese soldiers fighting for a colonial power. In 2021, Diop and translator Anna Moschovakis jointly won the International Booker Prize for At Night All Blood Is Black, making him the first French author to receive the award. His later novel, Beyond the Door of No Return (2021), explores colonial history, memory and the connections between Africa and Europe. His work is recognised for its lyrical intensity and its examination of colonialism, violence and historical memory.

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Details
Published
2020
Author
David Diop