The consecration of Goncourt
“A hymn to literature. This is how the president of the Goncourt academy, Didier Decoin, described The most secret memory of men by awarding him the most prestigious of French literary prizes. At 31, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr is one of the youngest laureates of Goncourt, but he is above all the first writer from sub-Saharan Africa to receive it. The novelist has also underlined that he was aware of “political questions that may be behind a similar award”, seeing a “very strong” signal from the jury. This fourth novel by the Senegalese writer was already among the big favorites of the French literary re-entry this fall, having managed to rank in the first selections of the Médicis, Femina and Renaudot prizes, in particular. Translation rights have also been sold in over 20 countries. And who says Goncourt, says massive reprint: the publisher, Philippe Rey, will reprint the novel in 300,000 copies, while sales had hitherto amounted to 10,000 copies since its publication in France last August.
The “purgatory of anonymity”
“As an African writer, I have no literary notoriety in the outside world. Ironically, the protagonist of The most secret memory of men who makes these words, Diégane Latyr Faye, is a young Senegalese writer who is trying to break into Paris. He is already the author of a novel which was taken from the “purgatory of anonymity” by a chronicle in The world Africa, article which earned him some attention in the literary world of the African diaspora of Paris – “the Ghetto, as certain languages of the bitch called it with affection, including mine,” he writes. But he wants to access what is, according to him, “THE dream” of many of his colleagues: the dubbing of the French literary milieu. This is how he wanders in thought, seeking to write his magnum opus, like this work that changed his outlook on literature and perhaps even his life, The Labyrinth of the Inhuman. “We went to its pages as the manatees go to drink at the source”, tells the character who decides to trace the trace of its author, a certain Elimane who caused a scandal before sinking into oblivion.
Exile and recognition
PHOTO BERTRAND GUAY, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr is the first writer from sub-Saharan Africa to receive the Goncourt.
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr uses a poetic and pictorial language to describe the quest of Diégane Latyr Faye, while he wonders about the meaning of literature and his visceral need to write a book that would “liberate” it. . He reflects at length on the question of the exile and the loneliness of the exile, who wrongly accuses the kilometers, “whereas it is the days that kill him”. By further exploring the place of the exile in his host land, he thus finds himself denouncing the colonial vision of Africa and the way in which African writers are perceived in the West, and expresses himself freely through his characters on the importance of a work that could live independently of the race and origins of the wearer. “It will of course happen that bourgeois France, in order to have a good conscience, consecrates one of you, and we sometimes see an African who succeeds or who is set up as a model. But deep down, believe me, you are and will remain strangers, whatever the value of your works. You’re not from here, ”he says to Diégane’s roommate.
An award-winning work
In addition to shining the spotlight on The most secret memory of men, this Goncourt prize made it possible to highlight the previous titles of Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, who manifested himself very early on as a committed author with three first novels rewarded by a number of prizes. Pure men (Philippe Rey / Jimsaan, 2018) discusses the treatment of homosexuals in Senegal, while Silence of the choir (Présence africaine, 2017) talks about these migrants who arrive in Sicily with the expectation of a new life. His first novel, Earth encircled (Présence africaine, 2015), published at the age of 25, examines the resistance in a city controlled by the Islamists. To discover.
The most secret memory of men
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr
Philippe Rey
464 pages
In bookstores on November 24