The Silence of the Choir
Mohamed Mbougar SarrA PUBLISHERS WEEKLY MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2024
FROM THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD-LONGLISTED AUTHOR OF THE MOST SECRET MEMORY OF MEN
A polyphonic tale of immigration and community by "the most promising Senegalese writer of his generation" (Le Monde) and winner of the 2021 Prix Goncourt
Seventy-two men arrive in the middle of the Sicilian countryside. They are "immigrants," "refugees" or "migrants." But in Altino, they're called the ragazzi, the "guys" that the Santa Marta Association have taken responsibility for. In this small Sicilian town, their arrival changes life for everybody.
While they wait to know their fate, the ragazzi encounter all kinds of people: a strange vicar who rewrites their pasts, a woman committed to ensuring them asylum, a man determined to fight against it, an older ragazzo who has become an interpreter, and a...