The Senegalese writer Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, winner of the Goncourt prize, declared Thursday evening in Dakar not to be “surprised by the controversy” in Senegal over one of his books which deals with homosexuality, during his first public conference in his country since his distinction.
Mbougar Sarr, who lives in France, won in October 2021 the Goncourt, the most prestigious literary distinction in France, for his novel “The most secret memory of men” (Philippe Rey and Jimsaan editions), a fiction on the life of the deceased Malian writer Yambo Ouologuem.
The writer, born in 1990, is the author of four books including “Terre ceinte” (2014), “Silence du cœur” (2017) and “De purs hommes” (2018). The latter, relating to homosexuality, tells the story of a man whose corpse is dug up and then dragged by a crowd out of a cemetery.
Highlighted by the Goncourt prize despite its anteriority, the work “De purs hommes” was poorly received by some who felt that the writer showed himself favorable to homosexuality, a phenomenon largely assimilated to a deviance from the Senegal.
“The controversy and the amalgams did not surprise me. For a long time, I have been concerned regarding a question, what it means to be a novelist today”, he affirmed, in front of an audience made up in particular of researchers, of pupils and students.
“A novelist is someone who never captures anything but the ambient anxiety. My whole mind is to keep the essentials. My work is a work of fiction. Everything that can be proclaimed regarding me as fantasy and characterization is ridiculous,” he said, during the conference organized by the Senegalese news site Seneplus.
“When we have a work that is attacked, we are the least well placed to defend it. There is something deadly for the author who is attacked to say + this is what I wanted to do, what are my intentions+,” said the 31-year-old writer.
“When you are the one who created the work, it is difficult and not even desirable to defend yourself. All I have to say is in my literal work. The answer is there,” he continued. .
“Alongside this, there is a space for debate that must always be maintained. In our traditional societies, there have always been traditions, rituals, configurations that favored forms of tolerance. How the frameworks that allowed a form of tolerance have been destroyed,” he wondered.
