At first his comrades look at Alfa’s deeds with admiration, but soon rumors begin to circulate that this super soldier isn’t a hero, but a sorcerer, a soul-eater. Anxious to avenge the death of his friend and find forgiveness for himself, he begins a macabre ritual: every night he sneaks across enemy lines to find and murder a blue-eyed German soldier, and every night he returns to base, unharmed, with the German’s severed hand. Unable to commit this mercy killing, madness creeps into Alfa’s mind as he comes to see this refusal as a cruel moment of cowardice. When his friend Mademba Diop, in the same regiment, is seriously injured in battle, Diop begs Alfa to kill him and spare him the pain of a long and agonizing death in No Man’s Land. Quick Book Summary (from the official blurb): “Alfa Ndiaye is a Senegalese man who, never before having left his village, finds himself fighting as a so-called “Chocolat” soldier with the French army during World War I. David Diop’s At Night All Blood is Black, winner of the 2021 International Booker Prize, is our next selection. (Oct.In a continuation of our series of micro-reviews, assistant editor Brandon Williams brought together a group of ardent readers to give their quick-hit impressions of recent novels which have won major awards from the literary world.
Diop is sure to earn readers with this feverish exercise in psychological horror. There, memories of a difficult childhood and delusions of a nurse’s desire for him add depth to Ndaiye’s narration, yet also spur him to commit one final heinous act in a brilliantly handled twist. The white French think he’s a “strange” Chocolat while his fellow Chocolats call him a “dëmm, a devourer of souls.” It’s an intriguing racial dynamic, though the narrative is a bit aimless until Ndaiye is transferred to a field sanitarium. To the disturbance of Ndaiye’s commanding officer, Ndaiye begins claiming spoils from the “blue-eyed enemy”: their rifles and the hands that held them. Ndaiye cannot bring himself to do so, and his aching regret (“Ah, Mademba! How I’ve regretted not killing you on the morning of the battle, while you were still asking me nicely, as a friend, with a smile in your voice!”) jump-starts a monologue of Ndaiye’s dive into mania. Alfa Ndaiye, conscripted in exchange for citizenship, spends hours squatting beside his mortally wounded best friend and fellow “Chocolat” Mademba Diop, who begs Ndaiye to show mercy and kill him.
Diop’s harrowing, nimbly translated English-language debut takes the form of a 20-year-old Senegalese soldier’s confession of his experience fighting for the French in the trenches during WWI.
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