Reading David Diop September 17, 2019
Photo of the Franco-Senegalese author David Diop, 2019
"AT NIGHT, OUR BLOOD IS BLACK"
Reading and discussion with Franco-Senegalese author DAVID DIOPW
WHEN? September 17, 2019, 7:30 p.m.
WHERE? Institute français, Kreuzstraße 6, 01067 Dresden
Reading and discussion in German and French with translation.
“At Night Our Blood Is Black,” David Diop’s second novel (“Frère d’âme,” Seuil; German translation by Andreas Jandl, published in 2019 by Aufbau Verlag), was hailed as a literary sensation in France and quickly became a favorite with both the press and the public. For this work, David Diop received, among other honors, the prestigious 2018 Prix Goncourt des lycéens.
The story follows Alfa Ndiaye, who—as his comrades call him, a “chocolate soldier”—fights alongside the French against the Germans in World War I. When Mademba Diop, Alfa’s beloved childhood friend and “soul brother,” bleeds to death in his arms, Alfa is overcome by grief and rage to the point of losing his senses, and his violent outbursts strike fear into his comrades. When he is withdrawn from the front, his thoughts take him back to his African past.
David Diop examines humanity in inhuman times and delves into the deepest recesses of the human psyche to explore the horrors of war. Alfa Ndiaye’s voice is both captivating and unsettling. “Like a tornado, this powerful, hypnotic text sweeps us away,” wrote the newspaper L’Humanité.
David Diop, born in Paris in 1966 and raised in Senegal, now teaches French-language African literature at the University of Pau.
A joint event organized by the Institut français Sachsen, the “Hommage à la France” literary prize of the Brigitte Schubert-Oustry Foundation, and the Centre France | Francophonie at TU Dresden, with the kind support of the Dresden Municipal Libraries. Sponsored by the Bureau du livre of the French Embassy in Germany and the State Office for Culture and Monument Preservation of the State Capital of Dresden.
