![]() ![]() Alfa can’t bring himself to do this and regrets it ever afterwards as his friend dies a longer and more agonizing death. He pleads with Alfa to cut short his agony by slitting his throat. ![]() ![]() Alfa lies down alongside him, holding his hand, as Mademba’s belly has been ripped open and his guts lie on the ground beside him. The novel starts with Alfa’s friend, his more-than-brother Mademba Diop, dying on the battlefield. This is the first account I’ve read of the First World War trenches from the perspective of an African soldier and it’s a powerful account indeed: the carnage, the terror, the devastating landscape of no-man’s land will be familiar to readers from other works, but it’s the voice from an underrepresented group which makes this account unique. ![]() David Diop’s book Frère d’Âme/ At Night All Blood is Black, short listed for the Booker International Prize, tells the story of Alfa Ndiaye, a Senegalese rifleman fighting for the French in the First World War. ![]()
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