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may 13, 2021 - Edinburgh International Book Festival
David Diop & Anna Moschovakis with Philippe Sands Live, Free and Online Tonight at 7.30pm
Our International Booker Prize Shortlist series continues tonight with our third nominated pair in discussion – read on for more details and join us at 7.30pm this evening on the Book Festival's website.
In this evening's session, author David Diop and translator Anna Moschovakis discuss the indelible At Night All Blood is Black with world-renowned author and international lawyer, Philippe Sands QC.
When we imagine the experiences of those who fought in The Great War, whose perspective are we taking? Perhaps the majority of histories have taken a Eurocentric view. Not French-Senegalese author #daviddiop, whose unforgettable short novel paints a starkly different picture of the brutal conflict of 1914-1918.
Anna Moschovakis is a translator who is fascinated by the spaces where 'languages, forms and subjectivities meet', and has brought Diop's elegant, spare prose to English-speaking readers as Diop conjures up a picture of fresh hell, and takes his lead character right into the heart of it.
The narrator, Alfa Ndiaye, is a Senegalese man fighting as an African legionnaire for the French. Having watched his friend die an agonising death, Ndiaye sets out for brutal revenge and turns himself into a merciless killing machine who takes to returning triumphantly from the frontline with the severed hand of one of his victims. At first, his French superiors are happy for him to 'play the savage' but before long his serial killing strikes fear even into his fellow soldiers' hearts. He comes to be regarded even by his African colleagues as a 'devourer of souls'.
Diop spent much of his childhood living in Senegal before returning to France for his academic studies and this profoundly resonant novel is grounded in the worldview of Senegal's Wolof #people. From within this frame of reference, Diop explores whether the colonial image of African brutality actually begets violence.
"Diop realizes the full nature of war — that theater of macabre and violent drama — on the page. He takes his character into the depths of hell and lets him thrive there." Chigozie Obioma, The New York Times
This #Event includes a short, performed reading from At Night All Blood is Black by actor Ken Nwosu, directed by Blanche McIntyre on behalf of the Royal Shakespeare Company and commissioned by The Booker Prizes.
All the Events in this series are FREE to watch and broadcast live from our website with live captioning available. You can purchase any of the books in the series, including At Night All Blood is Black, from the Book Festival's independent online bookshop here.
Coming up next week...
Benjamin Labatut & Adrian Nathan West with Jay G Ying
Thursday 13 May | 7.30pm BST| Watch live on our website here
In our next #Event, author #benjaminlabatut and translator Adrian Nathan West join us to discuss When We Cease to Understand the World, a majestic novel which hovers on the border of fiction and non-fiction. Looking at how pioneering 20th century scientists including Einstein, Schrödinger and Heisenberg grappled with mathematical theories that advanced our understanding of life while increasing the possibility of unimaginable human suffering, this dazzling text turns science into a series of stunning imaginative extrapolations. The pair discuss this unquantifiable book with writer and critic Jay G Ying.
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