The Silence of the Choir

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
AN ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR
A BOOK RIOT BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

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 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.

Mohamed Mbougar Sarr was born in Dakar in 1990. He studied literature and philosophy at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Brotherhood, his first novel (Europa, 2021), won the Grand Prix du Roman Métis, the Prix Ahmadou Kourouma, and the French Voices Grand Prize. In 2018, he became the youngest writer to have been awarded the World Literature Prize, for his second novel, Silence of the Choir. His third novel, The Most Secret Memory of Men (Other Press, 2023), won the 2021 Goncourt Prize and was longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award.