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At Night All Blood is Black

David Diop,

Anna Moschovakis (Translator)

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Sep 29, 2021 Johanne rated it really liked it

Shelves: library-books, black-authors, 2021-books

Alfa and his dearest friend Mademba leave Senegal to fight in the trenches of France in WW1. Mademba is mortally wounded and Alfa lies beside him in the mud, but can’t bring himself to end Mademba’s suffering. From that moment, Alfa begins to lose his mind.

What happens when a young man is taken from the only place he knows and thrust into a world of terror and horror and madness. How is it possible to stay sane in the insanity of war?

“Yes, I understood, God’s truth, that on the battlefield they ...more

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Sep 04, 2023 Missyjohnson1 rated it really liked it

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Apr 11, 2022 Tony rated it it was ok

Shelves: novels, setting-africa, historical-fiction, war-ww1, setting-france

This slim Senegalese-French novel is perhaps best read in a single sitting, letting the feverish language wash over one in a blast of anger and pain. At its center is young Sengalese Tirailleur (rifleman) Alfa Ndiayes, who is one of some 100,000+ French colonial troops sent to fight in World War I. The book opens with his childhood best friend bleeding to death in no-man's land and Alfa unable to fulfil his friend's plea to slit his throat. This is the final straw for him in this impossible mad ...more

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