Beyond the Door of No Return

Name: Beyond the Door of No Return
Brand: Brilliance Audio
Availability: InStock
Author: David Diop
ISBN: 9781491554494

Author: David Diop, Sam Taylor

Narrator: Dion Graham, Mark Bramhall, Adenrele Ojo, Caroline Hewitt

Unabridged: 7 hr 5 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Published: 09/19/2023

Categories: Fiction, Historical Fiction, World Literature

Synopsis

"Stunningly realized . . . Exquisite . . . A spellbinding novel about the high price of betrayal―of others, and oneself." ―Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King, shortlisted for the Booker PrizeOne of the Los Angeles Times's most anticipated books of the fallThe thrilling and deeply moving new novel by David Diop, winner of the International Booker Prize.Paris, 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the last word to escape his lips is a woman’s name: Maram.The key to this mysterious woman’s identity is Adanson’s unpublished memoir of the years he spent in Senegal, concealed in a secret compartment in a chest of drawers.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.Written 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.

About David Diop

David Diop was born in Paris and was raised in Senegal. He is the head of the Arts, Languages, and Literature Department at the University of Pau, where his research includes such topics as eighteenth-century French literature and European representations of Africa in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His second novel, At Night All Blood Is Black, was awarded the International Booker Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction.

Reviews

Goodreads review by David on September 27, 2023

This is Sam Taylor's translation of David Diop's La Porte du voyage sans retour, first published in 2021. On the surface, this seems like a straightforward work of historical fiction, a tale set in the 18th-century and centered around a fictional version of the real-life botanist Michel Adanson and......more

Goodreads review by Meike on August 06, 2024

Now Nominated for the National Book Award for Translated Literature 2023 Historian and International Booker winner David Diop writes about the mid-18th century slave trade in Senegal from the perspective of French botanist Michel Adanson. The novel opens with Adanson's death, when his daughter Aglaé,......more

Goodreads review by Lark on September 30, 2023

I enjoyed this novel a great deal. I'm not sure how it works and what it captivated me so much because it's mostly written in narrative summary and there are nesting narrators and honestly who would think it would be so captivating but it is. It has to do with the mood of it, the absolute immersion......more

Goodreads review by Cule.Jule on May 02, 2022

Aglaia, die Tochter von dem Botaniker Michel Adanson, findet eines Tages die Reisehefte ihres verstorbenen Vaters und erfährt von seiner Reise in den Senegal im Jahr 1952, seiner Liebe zur Botanik und vor allem zu der Liebe seines Lebens Maram, die sich als Heilerin in einem Dschungeldorf vor den Sk......more

Goodreads review by Jin on April 18, 2022

Eine Geschichte über die Beziehung und Anziehungskraft zwischen Menschen und Rassen. Von der Kurzbeschreibung hatte ich eine etwas andere Geschichte erwartet, aber so gefällt mir das Buch noch mehr. Es geht um einen französischen Botaniker, der über seine Liebe zur Botanik, Senegal und Maram, die Li......more

Quotes

“Diop's love story/epic adventure, written with compassion and skill, is dramatized by a talented team of narrators. Dion Graham portrays Michel Adanson, a French Enlightenment-era botanist; Mark Bramhall, Adenrele Ojo, and Caroline Hewitt portray different members of his family and some friends.… The Senegalese characters are adeptly portrayed by Graham.… Maram Seck, a young woman of noble birth from the kingdom of Waalo…is voiced with extraordinary sensuality by Ojo. Together, the narrators deliver a historical epic of the highest order, based on the richness and lyricism of Senegal's Waalo language rhythms and oral storytelling traditions.” —AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award Winner“The story begins in 1806 Paris, as narrator Mark Bramhall conveys the regret running through dying French botanist Michel Adanson's opening words. Bramhall then passes the tale to Caroline Hewitt, who superbly delivers the reactions of Adanson's daughter Aglae as she grieves her father's death and finds a secret journal detailing his last wishes.… Bramhall piercingly voices Adanson's helpless rage as he rationalizes his decision to relinquish his dream of being with Maram and marry a French woman instead. Adenrele Ojo's intense, whispery performance of Maram's story is spellbinding, and Dion Graham shines as Adanson's horrified guide and friend Ndiek. A compelling performance of Diop's National Book Award–shortlisted novel in translation.” —Library Journal"A mesmerizing tale . . . Less brutal than Diop’s International Booker Prize–winning At Night All Blood is Black (2020) but no less powerful . . . With its sumptuous physical descriptions, shades of language, and smooth overlap of truth and invention, this is masterful storytelling. The ease with which the narratives (including Aglaé’s) unfold belies the emotional force they gather." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)