Your Pan-African Bookstore
Our September 2023 Book Club Pick
About the Book
Alfa and Mademba are two of the many Senegalese soldiers fighting in the Great War. Together they climb dutifully out of their trenches to attack France's German enemies whenever the whistle blows, until Mademba is wounded, and dies in a shell hole with his belly torn open.
Without his more-than-brother, Alfa is alone and lost amidst the savagery of the conflict. He devotes himself to the war, to violence and death, but soon begins to frighten even his own comrades in arms. How far will Alfa go to make amends to his dead friend?
At Night All Blood is Black is a hypnotic, heartbreaking rendering of a mind hurtling towards madness.
About the Author
David Diop was born in Paris in 1966 to a French mother and a Senegalese father. He moved to Dakar at the age of five and spent the majority of his childhood in Senegal before returning to study in France at the age of 18 after finishing high school. Diop received a doctorate from the Sorbonne for his studies on 18th-century French literature.
In 1998, he became a lecturer in literature at the University of Pau and the Adour Region specializing in 18th-century French literature and in African French literature. In 2009 he was appointed to head a research group on the representation of Africa and Africans in 17th- and 18th-century European literature.
He received his habilitation in 2014. Diop now heads the arts, languages, and literature department at the university. He lives in Pau.
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About our Book Club
Our Book Club, as with our platform is also growing and expanding!!
Initially setting out as a small intimate book club group of 13 in 2018, our book club has tremendously grown and expanded over time. We have however had a cap on membership admission to keep the reading group small and manageable.
Following numerous requests and expressions of interest from readers wishing to join our book club discussions, we have decided to transition from ‘Bookish People’ Book club to Soma Nami Book Club - an invitation to you dear reader to read with us and join in our monthly book discussions.
As a fundamental tenet of our book club, we have an obvious bias for African Literature and literature by African Diaspora and we will continue amplifying these voices in our book selections and events. Our goal is to showcase the diversity of African Literature and the universality of our experiences as Africans mirrored through the books we read; written by Africans and the African Diaspora.