LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED FICTION'A love story,an adventure tale,and an unflinching examination of the unexpected ways that colonialism and greed ravaged everyone it touched,European and African'MAAZA MENGISTE,Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Shadow KingThe captivating new novel from David Diop,winner of the International Booker PrizeParis,1806. Michel Adanson is dying. The last word to escape his lips is a woman's name: Maram. Who was she Why,in the course of his long life,has he never spoken of her beforeAs Adanson's daughter sorts through his things,she discovers a notebook. It reveals a secret history both fantastical and terrible,of his time as a young botanist travelling in Senegal. How Adanson first heard of the'revenant': a young woman of noble birth,abducted and sold into slavery across the seas,who then did the impossible-she came back,to live in hiding. How he became obsessed with finding her,embarking on an odyssey that would lead to danger and destruction. How a man who longed to solve the mysteries of nature instead found himself faced with the uncontrollable impulses of the human heart.Tragic and tender,alive with feeling,this is a story of adventure,revenge and impossible desires,one which subverts our every expectation about who we are and who we love.
MEDIA REVIEWS
Publisher: Pushkin PressISBN: 9781782278399Dimensions: 216 x 135 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
I read Beyond the Door of No Return with pleasure and admiration. David Diop has opened up a new way of thinking about the eighteenth century and its hideous crueltiesStunningly realized and written in exquisite prose,Beyond the Door of No Return is a love story,an adventure tale,and an unflinching examination of the unexpected ways that colonialism and greed ravaged everyone it touched,European and African. It is above all else,a spellbinding novel about the high price of betrayal-of others,and oneselfA compelling romantic adventure... Intricately layered,enfolding stories within stories,Beyond the Door of No Return is many things at once: mystery,autobiography,epistolary,romance,adventure,confession. Through an act of remembrance,Diop seeks to build a repository of lives and histories lost to the slave tradeWith Beyond The Door of No Return,David Diop once again makes us re-examine and reimagine West African history and the wrongdoing that has been done there by Europeans. This book illustrates and raises questions about guilt,language,othering,treachery,adventure and love. It is a beautifully written,yet easy to read,novel,that will leave you thinking long after you finish itA formerly enslaved woman gets her revenge... Diop has turned fascinating historical records into fiction... Maram's touching story offers crucial lessons about unconscionable acts of slavery,perpetrated on both sides of the Atlantic OceanLess brutal than Diop's International Booker Prize-winning At Night All Blood is Black but no less powerful... With its sumptuous physical descriptions,shades of language,and smooth overlap of truth and invention,this is masterful storytelling. The ease with which the narratives unfold belies the emotional force they gather... A mesmerizing taleA captivating intergenerational epic influenced by Senegalese oral tradition... A novel to devour quickly,but which will leave readers contemplating its story long afterFurther endorsement of fiction's ability for revelation... There is suspense,adversity and tensionAt once melancholy and luminousA hypnotic,powerful historical novel in which stories nest within one another like dolls... In less skilled hands,the novel's structure would not work... But the opposite happens here. In a few vivid brush strokes,Diop brings to life not only Adanson,but also the ways in which his dreams,loves and losses shaped the lives of those around him. It all coheres mesmerizinglyDiop's poetic sensibility marks every sentence of this resonant storyReading about another country,another culture,another age has the brain-opening effect that Adanson experienced almost 300 years ago... There's nothing quite like this book out there(A) thrilling novel,full of escapade and adventure,but also an elegant meditation on the relationships between fathers and daughters,and on the challenges of reckoning with the legacy of personal and political historiesOffers a portrait of a world in which beauty and brutality co-existA sublime odyssey confronting the universal values of the Enlightenment with the Atlantic slave tradeDefinitively confirms David Diop as a major author on the modern literary landscapeGripping... A twisty novelA humanist meditation anchored in African tradition... A historical epic with a bewitching style... A superb adventure storyDavid Diop masterfully blends genres... Weaving together Western myths and African beliefs,the rationality of the dawning age of science and timeless magicBewitching at first,the story takes a cruel,overwhelming turn as the time for decisions comesA magnificent novel about romantic passion,and how it destroys as much as it saves - Praise for At Night All Blood is BlackSo incantatory and visceral I don't think I'll ever forget itAn extraordinary novel,full of sadness,rage and beautyMore than a century after World War I,a great new African writer (has written) a spare yet extraordinary novel about this bloody stain on human historyA stunning book for our times: poetically gripping,it has lodged itself deeply into my consciousnessWe agreed that its incantatory prose and dark brilliant vision had jangled our emotions and blown our minds,that it cast a spell on usAn intense exploration of the dehumanising effect of war and colonialism. This slight book explodes with extraordinary force - readers will not forget it in a hurryAn unrelenting take on war,race,masculinity,and colonialism... Diop's short,sharp,and serrated novel is a visceral dramatization of how our humanity and inhumanity are forever intertwinedA vital decolonisation of the narrative tyranny of the Great WarA brilliant shifting tale... deserves the bouquets and trumpetsA gripping,twisty account of industrial warfare,colonialism,violence,youth and friendship
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