Beyond The Door of No Return

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Description

The Door of No Return, on the island of Goree 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. He begins to search for this fabled woman, and soon his search becomes an obsession that leads him on a desperate journey through a land torn apart by slavery.

Set against the backdrop of the Age of Enlightenment and the Atlantic Slave Trade, Beyond The Door of No Return is a thrillingly subversive story of romance and adventure.




Praise for At Night All Blood is Black:


'So incantatory and visceral I don't think I'll ever forget it' - Ali Smith, Guardian


'More than a century after World War I, a great new African writer [has written] a spare yet extraordinary novel about this bloody stain on human history' - Chigozie Obioma, New York Times Book Review


'An extraordinary novel, full of sadness, rage and beauty' - Sarah Waters

Reviews

'At once melancholy and luminous' - Le Monde

'A sublime odyssey confronting the universal values of the Enlightenment with the Atlantic slave trade' - CNEWS

'Definitively confirms David Diop as a major author on the modern literary landscape' - Telerama

'A humanist meditation anchored in African tradition... A historical epic with a bewitching style... A superb adventure story' - Femina

Author Bio

David Diop was born in Paris in 1966 and grew up in Senegal. He now lives in France, where he is a professor of eighteenth century literature at the University of Pau. David's second novel, At Night All Blood is Black, has been translated into more than 30 languages, winning the International Booker Prize and the LA Times Book Prize, as well as major prizes in France, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzlerland and was chosen by Barack Obama as one of his summer reads. The Door of No Return was longlisted for the Goncourt Prize in France.