At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop

David Diop's novel At Night All Blood Is Black is set in France. It was first published in French by Éditions du Seuil on August 16, 2018, and it won the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens that same year.

The International Booker Prize winner for 2021 is a brilliant, brief novel about the harsh sorrow of war. Alfa Ndiaye, a Senegalese soldier fighting with the French during World War I, is unable to bring himself to mercy-kill his dying companion. This tragedy haunts him and begins to alter his psyche - he begins to mutilate the bodies of troops, alienating people around him as a result of the war's dehumanization and horrifying bigotry. It's a great, brilliantly written short story about the ambiguities of war.

Translated by Anna Moschovakis
Link to read: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50403480