Beyond the Door of No Return - David Diop

nA Finalist for the 2023 National Book Award for Translated Literature n nOne of The Atlantic's 10 Best Books of 2023 n nA Financial Times Best Book of 2023 Named a best book of the year by Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews n nA hypnotic, powerful historical novel in which stories nest within one another like dolls . . .

It all coheres mesmerizingly. --Clémence Michallon, The New York Times Book Review n nStunningly realized . .

. Exquisite . .

. A spellbinding novel. --Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King n nThe thrilling and deeply moving new novel by David Diop, winner of the International Booker Prize.

n nParis, 1806. The renowned botanist Michel Adanson lies on his deathbed, the masterwork to which he dedicated his life still incomplete. As he expires, the last word to escape his lips is a woman's name: Maram.

n nThe key to this mysterious woman's identity is Adanson's unpublished memoir of the years he spent in Senegal, concealed in a secret compartment in a chest of drawers. Therein lies a story as fantastical as it is tragic: Maram, it turns out, is none other than the fabled revenant. A young woman of noble birth from the kingdom of Waalo, Maram was sold into slavery but managed to escape from the Island of Gorée--a major embarkation point of the transatlantic slave trade--to a small village hidden in the forest.

While on a research expedition in West Africa as a young man, Adanson hears the story of the revenant and becomes obsessed with finding her. Accompanied by his guide, he ventures deep into the Senegalese bush on a journey that reveals not only the savagery of the French colonial occupation but also the unlikely transports of the human heart. n nWritten with sensitivity and narrative flair, David Diop's Beyond the Door of No Return is a love story like few others.

Drawing on the richness and lyricism of Senegal's oral traditions, Diop has constructed a historical epic of the highest order.n