The Silence of the Choir

(Paperback)

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Description

Seventy-two men arrive in theSicilian countryside. They are "immigrants", "refugees" or "migrants". But in Altino, they are called the ragazzi, the 'guys' that the Santa Marta Association have taken responsibility for. And their presence changes the course of life in this small Sicilian town.

While they await their fate, the ragazzi encounter all kinds of people: a strange vicar who rewrites their pasts, a woman committed to offering them asylum, a man determined to refuse it, an older ragazzo who has become an interpreter, and a reclusive poet who no longer writes.

Each character, wherever they may come from, is forced to reflect on what it means to meet people they know nothing about. As each brings a different view, a cacophony of discordant voices resonates to the end, when the final one reduces the choir to silence.

Reviews

'"The most promising Senegalese writer of his generation."' - Le Monde

'"A raucously polyphonic novel."' - The New Yorker

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Author Bio

Mohamed Mbougar Sarr was born in Senegal in 1990. Brotherhood (Terre ceinte), received the Ahmadou Kourouma literary prize as well as the Grand Prix du Roman Mtis. His second novel, Silence du choeur, was awarded the Prix Litterature-Monde 2018. An extract from his third novel, De purs hommes, was published in Granta Magazine in 2019. In 2021, he won the Prix Goncourt for The Most Secret Memory of Men, becoming the first author from sub-Saharan Africa to win the award and one of the youngest at only thirty-one years old. He currently lives in Paris. Alison Andersons translations for Europa Editions include novels by Slim Nassib, Amlie Nothomb, and Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt. She is the translator of The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Europa, 2008) and The Life of the Elves (Europa, 2016) by Muriel Barbery.