Literature and Memory - Series 1 - Examining David Diop's 'At Night All Blood is Black' - 12 Part series

Introduction

These blogs are based on my reading and understanding of David Diop's novel 'At Night All Blood is Black'. The book won the Man International Booker Prize in the year 2021. 

PART 1 - Man International Booker Prize 

Celebrating the author and the translator Man International Booker Prize complements the Man Booker Prize. The prize was awarded every two years. Since 2016, the award has been given annually. The prize money is 50,000 GBP. Earlier it was given in recognition of a writer's body of work rather than one title. Sine 2016, it is awarded to a single book translated to English. The prize money is shared between the author and the translator. Now the award is renamed the International Booker Prize. I was fortunate to meet and listen to the words of Jokha Alharthi, the Omani writer who won the award in 2019. I was attending an International Conference at PSMO college in Malappuram district in Kerala. Mrs Jokha Alharthi was the Keynote Speaker. The book which won her the award was Celestial Bodies. The translation of the book is available in Malayalam, and the translation done by my good friend and well-wisher Ibrahim Badusha Wafi.Ruskin Press plays a pivotal role in publishing the translated works from different languages. David Diop's book 'At Night All Blood is Black' is translated by Anna Moschovakis. She is a poet, author and translator. This post introduces three translated books published by Pushkin Press. 1. No Place to Lay One's Hand by Françoise Frenkel - The preface to the book is written by Patrick Modiano. The story of Françoise Frenkel - a Polish Jew who opens her bookshop in Berlin, which was a dream project for her. The dream lasted only for two decades. Françoise flees to France due to Aryanization. When the war starts, she moves to Nice and is horrified by what she sees around her. The book is translated by Stephanie Smee. 2. On Love and Tyranny - The Life and Politics of Hannah Arendt by Ann Heberlein How the ground-breaking work of Hannah Arendt was shaped by both her personal and outside world. The biography traces the journey of Hannah Arendt from Germany and then to Occupied France. The book is translated by Alice Menzies. 3. The Limits of My Language - Meditation on Depression by Eva Meijer. The book deals with the treatment of depression and how it can influence our bodies. The book also tells us 'how to move on from our darkest thoughts. The translator is Antoinette Fawcett. 

Part 2 - Pushkin, Perumal Murugan and Translation 

The connecting link between yesterday's post and this post is Jo Walker. She is a person who believes that she can do only one thing in her life, i.e. design book covers. She feels she was 'born to design book jackets and can't imagine doing anything else' These words are from the publishing house's website where she is currently employed as an Art Director. She is with Pushkin Press is a British publishing house founded in 1997. Pushkin Press published the book by David Diop - At Night All Blood is Black. They are doing a great job in translating works from different corners of the world. Translation can be regarded as an art but not a perfect one. In one of the Clubhouses discussions I listened to last night, the noted critic and reader, N.E Sudheer, said it is 'difficult to translate some works'. Vaikom Mohammed Basheer is one writer who cannot be translated. Pushkin Press has got more than a hundred books that are translated. They are committed to publishing 'high-quality writing from around the world'. Towards the end of 'At Night All Blood is Black', few pages give information about the translated works. It was a surprise and a matter of pride to find the name of Perumal Murugan on the list. Pushkin Press has published two of his novels - 'The Story of A Goat' and 'One Part Woman. Perumal Murugan is described as a compelling and award-winning contemporary writer'. Pushkin Press also has a lovely collection of biographies and memoirs. I will be writing about some of the selected titles from Pushkin Press tomorrow.

PART 3 -  Senegalese tirailleur

A tirailleur is a type of light infantry trained to skirmish ahead of the main army columns. The noun tirailleur has many meanings. It can be a skirmisher or a rifleman, or a sharpshooter. African troops were used as ‘cannon fodders’ to spare French lives. The French recruited 140,000 West Africans as tirailleurs. They served as combatants in Europe between 1914 and 1918. This cross-cultural encounter is a significant episode that happened between Africans and Europeans. The French colonial masters were able to inject propaganda into the minds of the Africans. The words used were ‘The Victory in the War will Save our Race and Save yours’. These soldiers’ personal experiences remained obscure. No war memorials were erected the Africans fought along with the French. The influence of Oral history is finally revealing after nearly 75 years of silence. The French recruited more than 29,000 tirailleurs from Senegal. They are the Senegalese Tirailleurs. The French deployed the Senegalese forces in the trenches. Senegalese combat losses were almost three times greater than those of French soldiers. The oral memories helped to gauge the significance of the wars on Senegalese. Most of the Senegalese feels that over a million fathers, mothers, wives and sweethearts made ‘a useless sacrifice’ in the past. Life histories that encompass the entire span of one’s existence is an excellent way to map the past. This is the background against which David Diop’s - At Night All Blood is Black will be read and discussed in the next ten days.  Inputs from ‘Memoirs of the Maelstrom -  A Senegalese Oral History of the First World War by Joe Lunn’

Part 4 - Exploring the book - 'At Night All Blood is Black'

After a detailed discussion of the book cover, information about the author and the translator, and the historical background, today, we embark on a journey to examine the book per se. Today we are discussing the events in the first ten pages of the book. The first ten pages cover the first two chapters. I have selected a passage from Page # 10 of the book. This is the section in the novel where Alfa Ndiaye is back in the trenches after carrying the dead body of his friend ( brother) Mademba Diop. ( note the similarity of the surnames of the author and this character) Alfa had to walk a long distance with the mortal remains of his friend. The moon was shining brightly at that time. Alfa's friends praised him for his courage, and they predicted that he would be awarded Croix de Guerre ( a military decoration of France), that his family will be proud of him, and even Mademba will be proud of him. The thoughts in Alfa's mind are different "I didn't care about the medal," Excerpt From David Diop. "At Night All Blood Is Black" Heavily burdened with guilt, he was thinking how he couldn't fulfil the wish of his friend who wanted to be killed to escape the scavenger birds of the battlefields. The words of Mademba echoed in his mind "slit my throat like a sacrificial sheep, don't let the scavengers of death devour my body! Don't abandon me to all the filth. Alfa Ndiaye… Alfa... I'm begging you…slit my throat!" ( At Night All Blood is Black Page # 5) From this short note, we can see that the tale weaved by Diop is not an easy read. Some of the descriptions in the novel are pretty intense. Diop describes the war-torn land in an in-depth manner. Diop is also a master when it comes to endearing illustrations. Let's examine this line from page 4 - "While the others hid in the gaping wounds in the earth we called as trenches". The description of the body destroyed by mortar shells is frightening and shocking. "his insides outside, like a sheep that has been dismembered after the sacrifice" (At Night All Blood is Black Page # 4). The character of Alfa is portrayed as one who has got a mind of his own. He is not gullible and following the mob frenzy of other indoctrinated soldiers. His case is a strange mixture of the personal memory ( his deep-rooted friendship with Mademba) and the collective memory of the times (the French Colonial era and the Senegalese Tirailleurs.

Part 5 - The Title of the Novel and the First Line of the Novel

David Diop's 'At Night All Blood is Black' The title of the novel appears on page 21. It is the line with which the author ends Chapter III. There is always a fascination to study the first lines of famous works in literature. Ursula Guin, in her essay 'The Fisherwoman's daughter describes the first lines as "First sentences are doors to worlds". Some of the famous first lines are "Call Me Ishmael' ( Moby Dick by Herman Melville), 'I am an invisible Man' ( Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison) 'Mother died today, or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure' ( The Outsider by Albert Camus) The opening lines of Diop's novel is '… I know, I understand'. This the personal philosophy of Alfa Ndiaye. He was not like others in the trench. He found others to be 'foolish' and 'idiotic'. According to Alfa, they always said 'yes'. They are always ready to follow the orders of the French Captain. They believed the Captain when he said that they are all 'great warriors' "You, the Chocolate of black Africa, are naturally the bravest of the brave". France admires you and is grateful' Alfa understand the hollowness of these words, and they don't influence him. He says, 'I understand the true meaning of the Captain's words'. Alfa asserts himself when he says, "I am free to think whatever I want'. He never returned to the trenches when 'a retreat was called'. He would be the last one to come back to the trench. Since Alfa always came back with a trophy or the spoils of the war, nobody questioned him. Alfa earned his freedom and independence. Others respected him, and they sometimes regarded him as a 'totem' and 'a force of nature. Diop is quite graphic when describing the horrid details of the war. Reader discretion is advised when reading the parts where Alfa becomes a savage and is on the hunt for the 'blue-eyed German' who killed Mademba. The novel illustrates how the French ( like any other colonial power) pitted the Senegalese tirailleurs against each other based on their tribal lineage. 'A Diop would not want it said of him that he is less courageous than a Ndiaye' (p14)

Part 6 - Conciliation, Remembering and Filling the Void 

David Diop’s 'At Night All Blood is Black’ plays a more significant role of being a work that helps France to face its colonial past in Africa. The book has sold more than 1,70,000 copies in France. When Diop attends book publicity events, people bring him ‘letters and photos of their grandfather or great grandfather with African infantrymen. Today, the book is discussed widely in the global academic circles ( like the Bangladesh War of 1971). Diop spent his childhood in Africa, and he was used to seeing soldiers being paraded in the streets during the National Day celebrations. These soldiers had fought for France in the two World Wars. Back in France, when he started reading letters by French soldiers, he didn’t find any reference to the infantrymen from colonised African countries. In Senegal, they remembered what they did for France. Out of exasperation, he wrote a fictional letter from a Senegalese soldier addressed to the French government. We may regard this as the starting point for ‘At Night All Blood is Black’. The work has led to a reckoning with the colonial history in French fiction’. Diop believes that ‘remembrance is necessary to achieve a sense of balance’. Diop was born to a family with two cultures ( also languages - French and Wolof). His mother was French, and his father was Senegalese. It was his mother who encouraged him to read French and African authors. Diop was heavily influenced by the universalist values of France, especially the Enlightenment movement led by the likes of Voltaire and Denis Diderot ( French Philosopher and Father of the Encyclopedia). Diop also researched the works of historians to fill the void in the narrative. He has also credited the 20th-century Ivorian novelist Ahmadou Kourouma to bring African flour to French literature. Diop terms it as a form of ‘reappropriation’ For Diop, writing is a way to ‘conciliate’ He believes that there is nothing to ‘reconcilliate.’ (With inputs from the article which appeared in the New York Times on May 31, 2021)

Part 7 - David Diop’s At Night All Blood is Black - Totem to Taboo 

From chapter four of the book, we witness a change in how the ‘others’ regard Alfa. They included both white soldiers (French) and Chocolate Soldiers from West Africa’ Alfa was celebrated as a war hero whenever he returned to the trenches. He was worshipped as a ‘totem’ or as a force of nature. When he returned, he always carried with him the ‘stench of death. Diop makes it a point to convey to the reader the ferociousness and the callousness of the war. Alfa says, My stench is the stench of death. When Alfa returned, his ‘war brothers’ fed him with delicacies, he was offered tobacco and helped clean his uniform. From this state of celebration, they became afraid of him. He was regarded as an untouchable. They were afraid of his frenzied way of killing and collecting the hands of the enemy soldiers as war trophies. He was always kept at a distance, and they started regarding him as a ‘soldier sorcerer’. Rumours started spreading about him and he was blamed for the death of Mademba. They believed that Alfa is a ‘devourer of people’s inside, a dëmm. Chapter eight is all about the bonding between Alfa and Mademba. Diop’s description of this bonding is note-worthy ‘we were like twin brothers who came out of the same day or the same night from their mother’s womb’ The day Mademba die, there was a quarrel between them about their tribal totems. Provoked by what Alfa said, Mademba Diop left the trenched ‘screaming louder than anyone else’ That is the day Mademba Diop died killed by the blue-eyed German.

Part 8 -  Beyond Post-colonial Narratives 

Chapter Nine begins with the words - ‘they’d had enough’ which refers to how Alfa’s countrymen and French soldiers are afraid of his antics in the frontline. The fear that they have in their mind reaches its zenith in this chapter. We are also introduced to the elderly figure of Ibrahima Seck, who is a winner of the Croix de Guerre military honour. He serves as the translator from French to Wolof. He always began his sentences with the exact words ‘The Captain says…” What the Captain told Alfa was to take rest for one month. The Captain also wanted to know where Alfa has hidden the ‘seven severed hands’. Chapter Ten is all about the tale of the severed hands. The chapter is not for the faint-hearted. There are descriptions of how Alfa used the techniques used at his home to dry those hands. “ I dried the hands of the blue-eyed one the way ay home we dry fish we want to preserve’. He is also talking about his friend Jean-Baptiste who the first enemy hand. He didn’t mind Jean Baptiste doing so. Alfa describes him as ‘the only real white friend in the trench’. When Alfa returned with the body of Mademba Diop, Jean-Baptiste was the only one who took care of him in the proper way. He even shared bread with Alfa and made him laugh. Chapter Eleven is about the ‘ugly death’ of Jean Baptiste’ He died because he provoked the blue-eyed Germans with the hand stolen from Alfa. The severed hand was fixed on his helmet. The reader is given a subtle hint that Jean-Baptiste deliberately did the act of provocation. Few days before the Germans killed him, he had received ‘a perfumed letter from home’. Alfa describes the event in these words ‘When he finished reading the letter, Jean Baptiste face has become great’. The chapters which we analysed today are significant because it introduces some new characters. It also brings in the short-lived but meaningful companionship between a Senegalese soldier and a French soldier. This is the grey area in Post-colonial studies. These bondings destroy the very idea of a coloniser and a colonised. One immediate example which comes to my mind is from the movie Lagaan where the white lady helps the villages to learn Cricket. There is always a level of truth beyond the political fiasco, like the story of Toba Tek Singh by Saadat Hasan Manto.

Part 9 - African Cultural Collective Memory in David Diop’s Work

David Diop’s novel is heavily interspersed with references to the African culture and tradition. In a way, through these references, the Senegalese origins of the author is celebrated. Alfa’s attacks on the German front in search of the ‘blue-eyed one’ is compared to the African mamba snake. “I slid like a snake along the side of the trench. I was invisible, and I slid, slid, slid as fast as I could to get myself right next to the enemy soldier” The Captain and the old Chocolat Croix de Guerre infantryman Ibrahima Seck wanted to know about the war trophies which Alfa has collected ( The seven severed hands) He never told them where he had hidden those trophies. Captain Armand ordered the soldiers to launch a search for finding these seven severed hands, and they were ready to inspect the things of Alfa. But he cleverly attached a talisman to the trunk’s handle where he had kept his war trophies. The amulet was given to him by his father before Alfa left for the war. So when the elder Ibrahima Seck came to inspect Alfa’s trunk, he backed away, seeing the talisman which had the drawing of a human hand that resembled the skin of the lizard Ounk. Chapter fourteen ends with the fling Alfa had with Fary Thiam, a girl in Alfa’s village. They met on the shores of the river in their village of Gandiol. They could get some privacy because the villagers were afraid of the river goddess Mame Coumba Bang.

Part 10 -  Mother, Mademba and Fatherland 

The following few chapters in the book ‘At Night All Blood is Black’ does not contain the horrid details of the war zone. Due to the excessive energy shown by Alfa, the Captain has asked him to occupy the ‘Rear’ (another word for the rehabilitation centre). He is confined to a hospital bed under the supervision of Dr Francois and his daughter Mademoiselle Francois who was a nurse. Alfa could sense that Mademoiselle Francois had a particular way of looking at him. "She said to me with her matching blue eyes that she found me very handsome from top to bottom". Alfa feels that 'he is far away from the battle'. His mind wanders, and he starts reminiscing about his life in the village and how he and Mademba courted the girls, especially Fary Thiam. There were strict ancestral rules which guided the acts of courtship and marriage. There are two instances where Diop has shared two nuggets of wisdom in the form of the Fula proverbs. The Fula nomad's adage says, "At dawn, you can already know if the day will be good and bad." Another Fula proverb says, "Until a man is dead, he is not done being created." Alfa goes on a trip down memory lane lying in the hospital bed. Since he couldn't speak French, he used drawings for communicating with the doctor. He drew two pictures lying there. One sketch is of his mother Penndo, and the second one was of Mademba. His mother was his father's fourth wife, and she left him when he was nine years old. She belonged to the nomadic tribes, and she didn't like staying in one place for long. She searched for her father and brothers, and it is believed that she was captured by the Moorish horsemen and sold as a slave to a great sheikh. The second drawing was a portrait of Mademba. The drawing is ugly because he was ugly, but according to Alfa, ‘If Mademba wasn't as beautiful as I am on the outside, inside he was more so' It was because of Mademba that Alfa joined the war. Mademba was educated in French schools where he was taught to love the Fatherland - France. When Alfa's mother left him, it was Mademba who took care of him. Mademba wanted to become a French citizen. He wanted to start a business in Saint Louis and become rich.

Part 11 - Life in the Rehab

Alfa Ndiaye in the rehabilitation centre or the Rear is flooded with memories of his village and Fary Thiam. It dawned on him that Fary Thiam offered herself to him because she wanted him to be a man before he went to fight the war. Fary Thiam is pictured as a sensible woman because she understood very well that France and its army would take him from her. She knew that he would never return to Gandiol. She went against the ancestral law and her father Abdou Thiam, the village's Chief. Alfa's father never liked Abdou because, as the village chief, he urged everyone to cultivate only peanuts instead of cabbage, instead of watermelons, instead of tomatoes, instead of millets. Alfa's father opposed this proposition in the meeting. He said that he is ready to dedicate one field for peanuts, but he will not use all of his fields for peanuts. In a polite manner, Alfa's father told the village chief that he should 'concern himself with the people's interest' This is a message for all the leaders in the world, and that is the only way they can be great. The third drawing which Alfa made for the doctor was the seven hands. Few days after his stay in the 'Rear', he felt Dr Francois washing away 'the filth of war from inside' his head. He sketched to 'cleanse the insides of his head with big buckets of mystical water'. After seeing his sketch of the seven severed hands, Dr Francois stopped smiling at him.

Part 12 - The Bodily Scars and the Stories that they Tell

The last few pages of the novel talk about the physical might of Alfa. Alfa is well built compared to Mademba, who is more of an intellectual time which is good at studies. Alfa is a wrestler and knows how to use his agile body to win wrestling events. Alfa was easily selected by the army recruitment officers, whereas Mademba was turned down in the first attempt. Alfa believes in the power of his body “my arms are heavier than I expected; they are full of suppressed power that feels like it could explode at any moment”. The same bodily attributes are referred to when Alfa gets physical with Mademoiselle Francois. ‘Her female gaze is something which is repeatedly mentioned in the book. ‘Mademoiselle’s eyes were sweeping across the middle of my body. As the novel move towards its conclusion, the character of Alfa kind of disintegrates and merges with that of Mademba. The novel ends with the line ‘God’s truth, I swear to you that now, whenever I think of us he is me and I am him’. The novel is also a celebration of the act of doing rather than talking about doing. The contrast between Alfa and Mademba is an indicator of this. With his war scars, Alfa is full of stories to tell, whereas Mademba is an academician who can only talk and give lectures. Men without scars are described as ‘men without history’.

This is a 12 part series which examined the 2021 International Booker Prize winning novel by David Diop - At Night All Blood is Black. The novel is examined through the lens of memory studies and cultural studies. Please do leave your valuable comments and feedback at aftermemoryspace@gmail.com. Thank you.