At Night All Blood is Black

Translated from the French by Anna Moschovakis

2022 Shortlist

Comments from the Judges

At Night All Blood is Black is a carefully crafted, heart-wrenching, passionate, and engaging story about the insanity of war and its devastating toll on humanity. Told from the perspective of Alfa Ndiaye, a 20-year-old Senegalese who, like his friend, Mademba Diop and many other young West Africans were conscripted by European imperial powers – in this case, France – to fight in World War I. The novel raises fresh concerns about the issues of war, humanity, identity, sexuality, racism, violence, and colonialism as it explores strong emotions like love, apathy, fear, and indignation towards war.  The plot hinges around the gruesome death in battle of Mademba, and Ndiaye’s refusal to carry out the “mercy killing” for his friend.  From that point onward, Ndiaye begins to spiral towards insanity, consciously becoming the “dämme”, “demon” or “savage” his European trench-mates think him to be.   Alternately horrific and lyrical, the novel moves back and forth between the Senegalese village of Ndiaye’s youth and the brutal chaos of the trenches.  For such a slim book, Diop’s novel manages to attain a kind of epic scale, sweeping back and forth between Africa and Europe, between world-historical events and village life.  Holding all of this together is the narrative voice of Ndiaye.  Diop combines traditional African tropes with modern literary devices, giving the novel a rhythmic quality, as Ndiaye repeats phrases like “God’s truth”, “more-than-brother”, “I swear to you”, “I know, I understand”, whispering gently in our ears as he carries us into the dark heart of twentieth-century history.

Alfa and Mademba are two of the many Senegalese soldiers fighting in the Great War. Together they climb dutifully out of their trenches to attack France’s German enemies whenever the whistle blows, until Mademba is wounded, and dies in a shell hole with his belly torn open.

Without his more-than-brother, Alfa is alone and lost amidst the savagery of the conflict. He devotes himself to the war, to violence and death, but soon begins to frighten even his own comrades in arms. How far will Alfa go to make amends to his dead friend?

At Night All Blood is Black is a hypnotic, heartbreaking rendering of a mind hurtling towards madness.

About the Author/Translator

David Diop is a professor of eighteenth century literature at the University of Pau, France. At Night All Blood is Black is David’s second novel. It was shortlisted for ten major prizes in France and won the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens. It has been translated into 13 languages, winning the LA Times Book Prize for fiction, the Italian Premio Strega Europeo, and the International Booker Prize 2021 among others. David Diop was born in Paris and grew up in Senegal.

Anna Moschovakis is a poet, author and translator, whose works include the James Laughlin Award-winning poetry collection You and Three Others Are Approaching a Lake and a novel, Eleanor, or The Rejection of the Progress of Love. Her translations from the French include Albert Cossery’s The Jokers, Annie Ernaux’s The Possession, and Bresson on Bresson.

Librarian’s Comments

A powerful and poetic story in the heart of the butchery of the trenches during the First World War, told from the point of view of a Senegalese rifleman, collector of severed hands. Bibliothèque de Reims, France