Join us for a presentation sponsored by Villa Albertine and Other Press on the gripping literary mystery which unravels the life of a maligned Black author, based on the true story of Yambo Ouologuem, winner of the 1968 Renaudot Prize, who disappeared after being accused of plagiarism.

In 2018, Diégane Latyr Faye, a young Senegalese writer in Paris, discovers a legendary book from the 1930s. No one knows what became of its author, once hailed as the "Black Rimbaud," after the book caused a scandal. Enthralled by this mystery, Diégane decides to search for T.C. Elimane, going down a path that will force him to confront the great tragedies of history. This is an astonishing novel about the choice between living and writing, and the desire to transcend the divide between Africa and the West, an ode to literature and its timelessness.

Mohamed Mbougar Sarr was born in Dakar in 1990. He studied literature and philosophy at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Brotherhood, his first novel, won the Grand Prix du Roman Métis, the Prix Ahmadou Kourouma, and the French Voices Grand Prize. The president of Senegal named him a Chevalier of the National Order of Merit. He won the 2021 Goncourt Prize for his novel The Most Secret Memory of Men, becoming the first sub-Saharan African to do so.