Descent into madness: a reading from ‘At Night All Blood is Black’

In this video, British actor Ken Nwosu reads a powerful and intense extract from the 2021 International Booker Prize-winning ‘At Night All Blood is Black’, written by French-Senegalese writer and literature professor David Diop, and translated from the French by US poet, author and translator Anna Moschovakis.

The novel portrays a young man’s descent into madness and tells the little-heard story of the Senegalese who fought for France on the Western Front during WWI.

The International Booker Prize is awarded annually for a single book, translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland, with the prize money divided equally between the author and translator.

This year’s winning entry – making its author the first French writer to capture the prize – is inspired by Diop’s Senegalese great-grandfather’s silence regarding his experiences in World War One.

The plot follows Alfa, left alone amidst the savagery of the trenches after his best friend is mortally wounded in combat. Far from all he knows and cherishes, Alfa throws himself into fighting with renewed vigour, but his relentlessness soon begins to frighten even his own comrades.

View the original video here.

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