Author on Tour: David Diop
About David Diop
David Diop was born in Paris and raised in Senegal. He is the Head of the Arts, Languages and Literature Department at the University of Pau, where his research includes such topics as eighteenth-century French literature and European representation of Africa in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In 2021, David Diop received the International Booker Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for his second novel, At Night All Blood Is Black (Frère d’âme, Seuil; trans. by Anna Moschovakis, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2020). His latest book, Beyond the Door of No Return was shortlisted for the 2023 National Book Award.
About Beyond the Door of No Return
(trans. by Sam Taylor, Farrar, Straus & Giroux 2023)
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 The key to this mysterious woman’s identity is Andanson’s unpublished memoir of the years he spent in Senegal. Drawing on the richness and lyricism of Senegal’s oral traditions, David Diop takes the readers, throughout his novel, on an exciting journey into the Senegalese bush and tells us a love story like few others.
Beyond the Door of No Return was released in the United States in September 2023.
Program
David Diop will be on tour in the US in April 2024.
His public program will include:
- Monday, April 15: conversation with Johann Le Guelte @ Georgetown University (Washington DC) – event in French;
- Tuesday, April 16: conversation with Kathryn Kleppinger @ Politics and Prose (Washington DC) – event in English;
- Wednesday, April 17: conversation with Ameneh Madjlessi @ Alliance Française DC (Washington DC) – event in French;
- Thursday, April 18: conversation with Madhu Kaza @ The Center for Fiction (New York, NY) – event in English;
- Sunday, April 21: participation in the US Goncourt Prize Selection Ceremony @ Villa Albertine (New York, NY) – event in English;
- Wednesday, April 24: conversation with Laurence Marie @ Maison Française Columbia (New York, NY) – event in French;
- Wednesday, April 24: conversation with Joumana Khatib @ Albertine (New York, NY) – event in English.
For more information, please email Valentine Richet at valentine.richet@villa-albertine.org.