"The Most Secret Memory of Men" a novel by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr

a review by James Wood

I finished reading The Most Secret Memory of Men the other day (10/31/24). The book has been on my To Be Read pile for a couple of years, and I’m quite pleased that I finally got around to reading the book. I found it exceptionally well written and incredibly insightful on the meaning of Literature The novel is written by author Mohamed Mbougar Sarr and was co-published in 2021 in the French Language as La plus secrète mémoire des hommes by the French independent publisher Éditions Philippe Rey (Paris) and the Senegalese publishing house Éditions Jimsaan (Dakar). The novel was translated into the English by Lara Vergnaud and published in the U.S.A. by Other Press in 2023.

Sarr, a 34-year-old writer (born 1990) was born in Daka, the capital of Senegal, and moved to France after secondary school to continue his studies before leaving school to focus on writing fiction. Sarr is known for his explorations of African identity and postcolonial themes. His first novel, Brotherhood, was originally published as Terre Ceinte in 2014 by Présence Africaine and then translated by Alexia Trigo into the English and published by Europa Editions in 2021. Brotherhood received several awards clearly identifying him as a writer to watch. He has gained positive attention in Francophone African literature, leading to this fourth novel, The Most Secret Memory of Men, which has received even broader critical acclaim.

The Most Secret Memory of Men won the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 2021, the first such win for a sub-Saharan African writer, establishing Sarr as an important voice in contemporary literature. The English translation by Lara Vergnaud was published by Other Press in 2023, totaling 464 pages. The novel can be described as a work of metafiction, blending elements of mystery, postmodernism, and historical fiction. The novel follows Diégane Latyr Faye, a young Senegalese writer in Paris, who becomes obsessed with tracking down information about T.C. Elimane, an enigmatic African author who vanished after his 1938 novel, Labyrinth of Inhumanity, was accused of plagiarism and condemned in racist terms by the French literary establishment. This part of the story loosely follows the life of Malian writer Yambo Ouologuem, who won the Prix Renaudot award in 1968, but after being eviscerated in the literary press, he left France and disappeared from public life. Diégane’s search for Elimane’s story leads him through a maze of clues across continents, revealing Elimane’s mysterious life and the novel’s hidden history. As he uncovers the past, Diégane grapples with themes of memory, identity, connections, and the role of literature in exploring those themes. Sarr does this while also exploring and unpacking the meaning of exile, the impact of colonial legacies, and the role of African voices in literature while blurring the line between myth and reality, echoing existential and postcolonial literary movements. 

Early in the novel, Diégane Latyr Faye’s roommate asks Faye what the book Labyrinth of Inhumanity is about. It’s a rhetorical question because the roommate goes on to answer his question: 

“... the only possible response is ‘nothing.’ A great book is only ever about nothing, yet everything is there ….” “The truth, Diégane, is that only a mediocre or bad or ordinary book is about something. A great book has no subject and isn’t about anything,  it only tries to say or discover something, but that only is already everything, and that something is already everything.”

I often struggle to explain that there is literature and there is Capital—L Literature. I’ve read this section a few times, and it took the first couple of close readings before I really began to synthesize what Sarr was getting at when he wrote these lines and the rest of the book for him to prove it to me. Sarr may have given me my explanation. 

The first example of Sarr’s exploration of memory and identity is the notable quote: “Literature is the place where the dead make love with the living.” This line speaks to Sarr’s exploration of how Literature connects generations, recalling and allowing the voices of the past to influence and engage with the present. Throughout the novel, the main characters show an obsession with the enigmatic T.C. Elimane and the meaning embedded in the mythical/fictional book Labyrinth of Inhumanity; although, Sarr never really tells us what that book is about.

Sarr writes, ”A book is a cemetery where each reader chooses their dead.” Again the author recommits to the idea that books are repositories of memory and personal resonance. Sarr makes a strong case that Literature allows – or demands – each reader to bring their own histories into the texts they encounter. 

The third example of Sarr’s address of memory, identity, and connections is the line, “The truth of a man is what he hides.” In the novel both the narrator, Diégane Latyr Faye, and the mysterious writer of Labyrinth of Inhumanity, T.C. Elimane, hide many of their feelings and much of their past from the people they have relationships with. As the story progresses Sarr slowly uncovers the hidden layers of their identities and histories. 

In the later quarter of The Most Secret Memory of Men you will find a long paragraph which beautifully describes a rupture between an artist and the homeland of his birth leading him back to, “not the motherland but the mortal land, the homeland for which our most profound self has always destined us…” As a reader of Literature and an outcast from the American political scene  – O.k. outcast may be a bit strong and perhaps outlier is more appt – Literature has always been a home away for home for me. Sarr again captures my imagination when he writes about a fellow writer of Faye’s search for a home, “Yes, I said, yes: I will be a citizen of that country, I will swear allegiance to the kingdom, the kingdom of the bookshelf.”

Overall, The Most Secret Memory of Men has garnered a reception that has been largely positive, with critics praising Sarr’s complex narrative structure and engagement with literary history, often comparing it to works by Roberto Bolaño – think The Savage Detective – and Chinua Achebe – the grandfather of African Literature. This spellbinding and intricate novel has resonated with readers worldwide, both for its narrative style and its profound questioning of legacy and belonging. It certainly resonated with me.