David Diop

The Door of No Return, on the island of Gorée off the coast of Senegal, is where millions of Africans last touched their home continent's soil before they were transported to slavery in the Americas. When French naturalist Michel Adanson travels to Senegal in 1749, he hears the story of a woman who passed through the door... but then returned....

Alfa and Mademba are two of the many Senegalese soldiers fighting in the Great War. Together they climb dutifully out of their trenches to attack France's German enemies whenever the whistle blows, until Mademba is wounded, and dies in a shell hole with his belly torn open. Without his more-than-brother, Alfa is alone and lost amidst the savagery of the...