David Diop grew up in Senegal and is currently a lecturer at the University of Pau. His literary work delves into the depths of human existence with a keen eye for detail and a poetic voice. He crafts narratives that resonate with emotional truth and explore universal themes.
In this English translation of Hammer Blows, the famous collection of poems by renowned writer David Diop is presented in all its brilliance and wit.First published in 1956, this powerful collection was written during the height of the Negritude movement in France. Posthumously translated into English as Hammer Blows, Diop's voice offers a passionate critique of slavery in the American South and colonialism in Africa.Edited and translated from the French by Simon Mpondo and Frank Jones.'A vigorous use of diction that cuts like a whip, an impassioned and total commitment to the oppressed.' John F. Povey
The hotly anticipated new novel by David Diop, winner of the International Booker Prize. Paris, 1806. The renowned botanist Michel Adanson lies on his deathbed, the masterwork to which he dedicated his life still incomplete. As he expires, the last word to escape his lips is a woman’s name: Maram. The key to this mysterious woman’s identity is Adanson’s unpublished memoir of the years he spent in Senegal, concealed in a secret compartment in a chest of drawers. Therein lies a story as fantastical as it is tragic: Maram, it turns out, is none other than the fabled revenant. A young woman of noble birth from the kingdom of Waalo, Maram was sold into slavery but managed to escape from the Island of Gorée—a major embarkation point of the transatlantic slave trade—to a small village hidden in the forest. While on a research expedition in West Africa as a young man, Adanson hears the story of the revenant and becomes obsessed with finding her. Accompanied by his guide, he ventures deep into the Senegalese bush on a journey that reveals not only the savagery of the French colonial occupation but also the unlikely transports of the human heart. Written with sensitivity and narrative flair, David Diop’s Beyond the Door of No Return is a love story like few others. Drawing on the richness and lyricism of Senegal’s oral traditions, Diop has constructed a historical epic of the highest order.
A Times historical fiction book of the year, new in paperback - the prize-winning story of a Senegalese soldier in the trenches, told in hypnotic, powerful prose.
