Femina, Goncourt, Renaudot, Medicis and many others… With his 4th novel, The most secret memory of men, published in August by Philippe Rey editions, Senegalese writer Mohamed Mbougar Sarr won almost all of the back-to-school literary prizes, but also critics, booksellers and readers.
Inspired by Malian writer Yambo Ouloguem, Renaudot Prize 1968 with his novel the Duty of violence, his novel is well placed to win 50 years later the votes for the same prize, or / and that of Goncourt, both simultaneously awarded on November 3 at the restaurant Le Drouant.
The story : in 2018, Diégane Latyr Faye, a young Senegalese writer living in Paris, was overwhelmed by the discovery of a book, The labyrinth of the inhuman, published in 1938. The story of this mysterious book intrigues him. The one then called the “Negro Rimbaud”, disappeared in nature after the publication of his book, after the scandal caused by his book.
Diégane then takes it into his head to find out who is behind the story of this novel, which he considers to be an absolute masterpiece. His quest will lead him in the footsteps of Elimane, from Senegal where he was born, to Buenos Aires, via Amsterdam or Paris.
If he delves into the intimate story of his two characters as African writers, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr also scans, by stepping aside with a distance tinged with humor, the history of the tumultuous relationship between Africa and the ‘West, the reciprocal fascination mixed with fear that binds the African man and the white man, thus brilliantly revisiting the eternal face to face North / South.
“Between these two continents and stories between which we always have the impression that we have to choose, I try to invent another. The third is the continent of literature.”, confided the novelist to the newspaper Liberation in August.
With an abundant, lyrical, inventive pen, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr deploys in multiple narratives, in all kinds of forms this story, which embraces that of the 20th century until today, from colonization to emancipation, by way of by the butchery of 14, and by the Shoah.
This “world” novel is in itself a thriller, a philosophical tale, a hymn to literature and freedom, an ode to life, with, it should be noted, magnificent female characters.
“A great book never talks about anything, and yet everything is there”
“The most secret memory of men”page 50
The most secret memory of men So had much to seduce the jurors of the literary prizes, who almost all included in their selection for this start of the 2021 school year. The craze surprised the person concerned.
“These price stories, I always looked at it from a little distance, while being interested in them. I did not know how it worked. Obviously, it pleased me, I was very honored, very touched , but I understand that these are only first lists “, he confided to AFP last September.
So surprised that he had promised his publisher that he would run a marathon if his book landed in at least three lists. We do not know, however, what the writer promised in the event of a final victory at Goncourt …
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr’s 4th novel did not only appeal to literary juries. The criticism is more than enthusiastic. “That literature still has its gold diggers, and youth as a headlamp, this is the best news of the fall”, believes Camille Laurens in Le Monde. “As much to say it right away, this novel is a great book, a jewel of know-how which enchants you, transports you and pursues you“, enthuses Marianne Payot in the Express. “brilliant novel”, for Valérie Marin La Meslée du Point.
“The book did not immediately catch the interest of bookstores”, confides Marie-Laure Walckenaer of Éditions Philippe Rey, “but with the enthusiastic reception of the journalists, they seized on this novel and now defend it a lot “, adds the press officer. First printed in 5000 copies, the book has already been reprinted several times, with a print run “which today reaches 30,000 copies”, specifies the editor.
The eldest of seven boys, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr grew up in Diourbel, east of Dakar, in a privileged environment, where we believed in merit. “I just want to give the best example possible to my brothers”, he told AFP.
After military studies, the Military Prytanee of Saint-Louis, an extremely selective course, then a preparatory class in France, in Compiègne (Oise), and finally the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, where he began a doctorate in letters.
“I did not finish my thesis, because I started to write a lot at that time, and fiction won out”, says the writer, who now lives in Beauvais.
Entered literature at the age of 24, with Earth encircled, published by a house whose catalog had formed him, Présence africaine, he joined after his second novel by the same publisher, Philippe Rey editions, with whom he published in 2018 Pure men, the third and finally this fourth book, which promises to propel it now in the list of authors who matter.
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“The most secret memory of men”, by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr (Editions Philippe Rey, 448 pages, 22 €)
Extract :
He was talking to me. Elimane was talking to me. I knew what he was talking about. And that’s why I clung to his voice. And I too, like you today, started to wonder what had happened to him, where he had gone, what he had done and lived and suffered and you and hid. A man like that doesn’t just disappear. Or maybe it is. Maybe all men can disappear this way. But can we believe in disappearances without inheritance? To absolute fainting? I do not believe it. I still don’t believe it. There is a presence that remains after every departure. Perhaps even the true presence of beings and things begins after every departure. Perhaps even the true presence of beings and things begins only after their disappearance. Do not you think ? (“The most secret memory of men”, page 211)