David Diop
Author
Description
Alfa Ndiaye is a Senegalese man who, never before having left his village, finds himself fighting as a so-called "Chocolat" soldier with the French army during World War I. When his friend Mademba Diop, in the same regiment, is seriously injured in battle, Diop begs Alfa to kill him and spare him the pain of a long and agonizing death in No Man's Land. Unable to commit this mercy killing, madness creeps into Alfa's mind as he comes to see this refusal...
Author
Publisher
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pub. Date
2023.
Description
"A historical novel about a French botanist's search for a mysterious woman who escaped from slavery in Senegal"--
Paris, 1806. The renowned botanist Michel Adanson lies on his deathbed, the masterwork to which he dedicated his life still incomplete. As he expires, the last word to escape his lips is a woman's Maram. The key to this mysterious woman's identity is Adanson's unpublished memoir of the years he spent in Senegal, concealed in a secret...
Author
Publisher
Éditions du Seuil
Pub. Date
[2018]
Description
One morning of the Great War, Captain Armand whistles the attack against the German enemy. The soldiers rush forward. In their ranks, Alfa Ndiaye and Mademba Diop, two Senegalese riflemen among all those who fight then under the French flag. A few meters after having sprung from the trench, Mademba falls, wounded to death, under the eyes of Alfa, his childhood friend, he more than a brother. Alfa finds himself alone in the madness of the great massacre,...
Author
Publisher
Éditions du Seuil
Pub. Date
2022.
Description
"La porte du voyage sans retour est le surnom donné à l'île de Gorée, d'où sont partis des millions d'Africains au temps de la traite des Noirs. C'est dans ce qui est en 1750 une concession française qu'un jeune homme débarque, venu au Sénégal pour étudier la flore locale. Lorsqu'il a vent de l'histoire d'une jeune Africaine promise à l'esclavage et qui serait parvenue à s'évader, son voyage et son destin basculent dans la quête obstinée...