At Night All Blood Is Black

Winner of the 2021 International Booker Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction, David Diop’s At Night All Blood is Black tells the haunting story of Alfa Ndiaye, a Senegalese soldier grappling with trauma in the trenches of World War I. After a traumatic encounter with his dying friend, Alfa embarks on a dark quest for vengeance, sneaking across enemy lines each night to murder a blue-eyed German soldier and returning with trophies of his actions. The novel weaves elements of oral storytelling with the grim realities of war, exploring themes of madness, heroism, and the psychological scars left by conflict.