A Senegalese author made history by winning France’s most prestigious literary prize. Yle met a storyteller who praises the magical power of reading.
The author, born in Senegal in 1990, smiles a little awkwardly in the divan-like armchair of a hotel in Helsinki and laughs:
– I feel like an old soul and a child at the same time.
Sarr, who currently lives in Paris, arrived the day before from Krakow, from one of Europe’s biggest literary events, directly to the main stage of the Helsinki book fair. Even here in the north, a 40-meter line of people asking for an autograph formed in front of the author. A new star of world literature has been born.
Sarr travels around the world for his novel (Gummerus). He doesn’t seem tired. Although airports are exhausting, meeting people gives you energy.
The 32-year-old author won the most prestigious literary award in France last year. Sarri’s award is historic, as the author is not only the youngest recipient in fifty years, but also the first writer from sub-Saharan Africa to receive the award.
The translation rights of Men’s Deepest Secrets have been sold to 35 countries and in France alone the book has sold over half a million. From the Nordic countries, Finland is the first country where the book has been translated.
The recognition has encouraged others to write as well
The award-winning novel deals sharply and ironically with questions about the traces of colonialism, world literature, criticism and plagiarism. It also pokes fun at the French literary elite.
Ironically, after receiving the Goncourt prize, Sarri became part of the circles. The author also admits it. He says he tries not to attach too much importance to the award.
– When I get back to writing, I will surely soon forget about the award. When you write, you have to focus on plot, language, rhythm and structures. It’s always just as difficult, elite or not.
Although the award-winning novel is biased towards the circles and the elite, Sarr also sees a benefit in the recognition. His reward has a political level. It has encouraged other writers. The writer’s Senegalese publisher has received many manuscripts from young Senegalese and other African writers.
– It is also comical that the book continues to live and write itself.
Sarr tells about a moving encounter in a hotel. A Malian floor cleaner came to hug the writer. The woman told how proud people in her circle of acquaintances are of Sarri and how they need people like you, a young writer.
– The woman felt that she was represented with my literary elite award.
The women of the family and the tradition of storytelling
Sarr was born into a middle-class Sereri family in the town of Diourbel, the size of Jyväskylä in terms of population, near the big city of Dakar. The Serer are the second largest ethnic group in Senegal and speak the Serer language.
Although football was Mohamed Mbougar Sarri’s first career dream, he was also a reading child.
The boy was led to read by the traditional sereri stories told by the women of the family. Oral stories were a rite of passage to imagination and storytelling.
– You can only become a writer by reading, Sarr says seriously.
The stories told by African women also play a big role in the novel Men’s Deepest Secrets. Through them, the book moves not only in different times, but also in different realities.
Sarri’s teachers in Senegal recognized a student with a passion for reading. Serer was spoken at home, but in Senegal school is taught in French. French as a language of instruction is a colonialist relic.
– We Senegalese writers have not chosen French, it is the mold in which we are placed.
– The languages \u200b\u200bI speak in my books are a nutrient, an element hidden under the surface, which can be seen in the language’s poetry, rhythm and language images, the author formulates.
From a lonely blogger to a successful author
After high school, young Mohamed Mbougar Sarr moved to France to study. The move was a revolution and made Sarri, who had already \”scribbled\” all kinds of things at a young age, become a writer.
It all started with a blog that was like a public diary. By writing a blog, the lonely student initially positions himself in a new environment.
– Not only did I create a look at myself, but I also discovered a new culture and new people.
Sarr published his first novel at the age of 24. Before the novel was published, he had already written a short story that won a short story competition.
Friends knew that Sarri was writing, they encouraged him, but above all it was an internal escape. The military coup and extremist Islamist violence in the West African country of Mali in 2012–2013 gave rise to the urge to write long prose.
The first novel (2015) describes life in a fictitious Sahelian village under the control of Islamist jihadi forces. The novel received numerous awards in France.
In his interviews, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr has talked about the fact that literature is a kind of political battlefield and when telling stories about people, politics comes up in one way or another. He belongs to some organizations and works socially, but he does not want to be political with his books.
– If I wrote political first, my novels would fail. My way of handling the text is more philosophical and existential.
In the arms of the swaying text
Sarr is serious by nature. A person whose mind moves great ideas that deeply create literature and life. There are such in his award-winning book, which equally bursts with irony and saucy humor.
is said in the novel.
Where does the power of literature lie? According to Sarri, the secret can even be in a single figure of speech, in one sentence, which acts like a revelation and reveals something about the reader.
– Reading a good text gives us the opportunity to formulate questions that have been hidden inside us, but we haven’t been able to express them, maybe even think about them.
He talks about how there is something liberating about the upheaval that comes through literature; how time takes on different proportions when reading, it becomes denser and deeper and brings an inner experience that music and TV series cannot replace.
– But there is also musical pleasure associated with reading, when you can be in the lap of a swaying text.
Sarr talks about the role of homes and schools in encouraging reading, but also suggests a recipe familiar from his childhood: Emphasizing the oral origin of texts could serve as a gateway drug. Texts could be brought to the stage, to be read aloud.
– Maybe this would eliminate the objectivity of the book that scares young people. We should proceed with small steps to ensure that the book is not a source of boredom.
From Finland, Sarr travels to France to play the flute for a day. From there, the tour continues to Burkina Faso, which is struggling under the shadow of jihadism, for a theater festival where a performance based on Sarri’s first book will be presented. Next are at least the Netherlands, Belgium, Mexico and Italy.
Can there be anything else in life?
– Oh, what do I do when I don’t answer boomers’ questions, grins Sarr.