At night all blood is black

Alfa Ndiaye, a young Senegalese man who has never left his village before, is drafted into the French army during World War I, where he fights as a "chocolate" soldier. When his friend Mademba Diop is seriously injured in battle and begs him to kill him, to spare him a long and agonizing death in no man's land, Alfa is unable to do so mercifully. However, the terrible suffering of his companion and his own cowardice drive him ever closer to madness. To avenge his friend's death and gain forgiveness in his own eyes, he embarks on a gruesome ritual... This novel, peppered with murder and black magic, tells a chapter of the horrific events of war through the tools of oral storytelling, raising the question of how a man can fight his own demons and how far he will go to atone for his perceived or real sins. David Diop's book has been awarded numerous prizes: Los Angeles Times Fiction Book Award (2020), Prix Goncourt des Lycéens (2018), Europese Literatuurprijs (2020), Strega Prize (2019).