At Night All Blood Is Black: A Novel

Content Warning: The source material contains graphic depictions of rape and violence, including murder and torture.

Diop’s novel raises a voice in protest of the randomness and meaninglessness of wartime death. The observation from the end of Chapter 3, “At night, all blood is black” (22), which Anna Moschovakis takes as a title for her translation of the novel, points to death as a great equalizer. It does not matter if the dead soldier was German or French, white or Black. Wartime death is figured as a common human tragedy, and war as a great waste.

After Mademba dies, Alfa is upset that “the Chocolat soldiers didn’t speak to [him] again about it because to them Mademba’s death was one among the rest” (48). For Alfa, this one death is world-shaking. His efforts to avenge and reenact Mademba’s death change him until he becomes, in his mind, a dëmm, “a devourer of souls” (38). The ritualistic killings of German soldiers or rape of Mademoiselle François are all hideous attempts to insist that Mademba’s death counts. Mademba’s fate emphasizes the dual violence of war and colonization; despite his devotion to the “motherland,” he is completely forgotten by everyone but Alfa.