Anna Branach-Kallas argued that the novel commemorates the contribution of African French Army soldiers in the First World War by stressing their vulnerability and their traumatic transformation on the front lines. In The New York Times, Laura Cappelle praised the work for contributing to a "reckoning with colonial history in French fiction", and Chigozie Obioma described it as an "extraordinary" novel about a "bloody stain on human history". Suzi Feay in The Spectator wrote of the novel as "powerful" and "full of echoes and portents".
Angelique Chrisafis in The Guardian said the book was "heartbreaking and poetic". Le Monde viewed it as a subversive story endowed with "undeniable literary qualities", appropriately published in time for the Armistice Day centenary. RFI called the original book "incisive and scathing", noting Diop's "very direct" style. The narrator speaks in the voice of Mademba, believing he is now living in Alfa’s body.Ĭritical reviews of the novel were generally favourable.
The narrative meditates on the meaning of stories within stories and the difficulty of translation. The narrative abruptly shifts to recount a Senegalese story about a fickle princess and a sorcerer without scars. He buries his collection of mummified hands, then rapes and kills Dr. François, Alfa reminisces about his childhood and life in Senegal.
While being treated in a psychiatric hospital by Dr. After the seventh severed hand, the commander orders Alfa to take one month’s leave. He then brings their severed hands and rifles back to camp.Īt first, he is hailed as a hero for his bravery, but his fellow soldiers quickly realize that he is spiraling into madness and become afraid of him. When they beg for death, he kills them, granting them a mercy he was unable to give to Mademba. After Mademba’s death, Alfa captures German soldiers and disembowels them. Mademba asks Alfa to kill him repeatedly, but Alfa is unable to do so. Wanting to prove his bravery, Mademba charges into battle and is disemboweled. One day, Alfa jokes about the Diop family’s totem, the peacock, stating that it is cowardly when compared to the Ndiaye family’s lion. Plot Īlfa Ndiaye and his adopted brother Mademba Diop are Senegalese Tirailleurs fighting in World War I. It was published in the UK by Pushkin Press and in the US by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The English translation by Anna Moschovakis won the 2021 International Booker Prize. First published in French on August 16, 2018, by Éditions du Seuil, it won the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens that same year. At Night All Blood Is Black ( French: Frère d'âme, lit.'Soul brother') is a novel by French author David Diop.
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