Book Cover Image of Silence of the Choir by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr

Silence of the Choir
by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr

    Publication Date: May 14, 2024
    List Price: $18.00
    Format: Paperback, 372 pages
    Classification: Fiction
    ISBN13: 9798889660200
    Imprint: Europa Editions
    Publisher: Europa Editions
    Parent Company: Europa Editions

    Description of Silence of the Choir by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr

    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. Their arrival changes everybody’s life in this small Sicilian town.

    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 reclusive poet who no longer writes.

    Each character in this moving and important saga is forced to reflect on what it means to encounter people they know nothing about. They watch as a situation unfolds over which they have little control or insight. A story told through a growing symphony of voices that ends only when one final voice brings silence to the choir.