The latest addition to my website is David Diop‘s Frère d’âme (At Night All Blood Is Black). This book won the International Booker Prize in 2021. It tells the story of Alfa Ndiaye and his friend, Mademba Diop, Senegalese soldiers fighting for the French in World War I. Mademba is killed by a German pretending to be dead, who stabs him in the stomach. Alfa gets his revenge by hiding near shell-holes and killing any emerging Germans. He carries back their rifles, with the severed hands holding the rifle, back to the trenches. He is initially feted but then, when he continues, feared as a madman and sent to the rear to rest. In the rear, we learn of his past and his voyage of self-discovery, with Diop using fable, legend and inner psychology to aid him. It is a superb read, mixing conventional realism and more traditional forms.