The Most Secret Memory of Men

THE GLOBAL LITERARY QUEST BESTSELLER

'A masterpiece' The Times
'The style as well as the sweep is Bolaño-esque' Observer

Paris, 2018. Diégane Latyr Faye, a young Senegalese writer, discovers a legendary book titled The Labyrinth of Inhumanity. It has an immediate hold over him. No one knows what happened to the author, T.C. Elimane, who was accused of plagiarism, his reputation destroyed by the critics.

Obsessed with discovering the truth about Elimane's disappearance, Faye weaves past and present, countries and continents, following the author's labyrinthine trail from Senegal to Argentina and France and confronting the great tragedies of history.

Will he get to the truth at the centre of the maze?

A gripping literary quest novel and a masterpiece of perpetual reinvention, The Most Secret Memory of Men confronts the impact of colonialism and neo-colonialism, the holocaust in Europe, dictatorships in South America and the Caribbean, genocide in Africa, and collaboration and resistance everywhere. Above all, it is a love song to literature and its timeless power.

WINNER OF FRANCE'S MOST PRESTIGIOUS AWARD, THE PRIX GONCOURT
LONGLISTED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD

Translated by Lara Vernaud.

MOHAMED MBOUGAR SARR was born in Dakar
in 1990. He studied literature and philosophy
in Paris and is the author of four prize-winning
novels. The Most Secret Memory of Men was
awarded France's Prix Goncourt in 2021 and is
an international phenomenon, selling more
than half a million copies in France and
translated into more than thirty languages.

LARA VERGNAUD is a translator of prose,
creative non-fiction and scholarly works from
the French. She is the recipient of the French-
American Foundation Translation Prize and the
French Voices Grand Prize, and has been
nominated for the National Translation Award.
She lives in southern France.