“At night all Blood in Black” by David Diop

This short novel certainly justified being shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker prize. It is evocatively written and is very much a book of two halves. The judges have now awarded it the 2021 prize.
To read the blurb you might think the storyline is restricted to macabre, nocturnal expeditions on the French front line in WW1. This totally ignores the second section which is a beautiful memory of a childhood growing up in a remote village in Senegal.

Alfa Ndiaye is a Sengalese soldier fighting alongside his childhood friend Mademba Diop with the French army, who he affectionately refers to, repeatedly throughout the book, as “his more-than-brother”. Mademba is critically wounded, and Alfa stays with him until he dies, but during that period cannot comply with his friends request to spare his suffering, and end his life. After carrying his friend back to the French trenches this failure to answer those dying wishes haunts Alfa. He embarks on a revenge of the Germans, “the blue-eyed enemy.” After each assault on the enemies lines, he stays behind hidden in no mans land “la terre a personne” until darkness falls, and he then bides his time to attack, kill and mutilate a stray lone soldier.

His exploits, initially impress his colleagues, but that soon turns to fear, and eventually disgust especially the morbid trophies he brings back. Alfa becomes isolated amongst his fellow troops within their trenches, and of mounting concern to his French superiors. These chapters record his steady decline towards mental instability; and then see him moved to “rest” away from the front-line; and here the story moves to reflections of his childhood and how the two soldier’s friendship leads them on their journey to Europe to fight for the French army.

It is very much these two halves that make this book so good. There is a need to read through the more harrowing trench warfare, and whilst the recollections Alfa presents from behind the lines do not shy away from his atrocities, I found the fond memories of his mother, and his Sengalese village childhood evocative and memorable.

The writing and the translation, as the International Booker prize is jointly awarded, is fully deserved.