�y��vlog

"He had seen evidence of maltreatment and atrocities before we went up into the rubber plantations, but I think what he saw there shifted his whole view of the colonial experience," Patrick said.

In a profile of the author, Times contributor Anderson Tepper wrote that “Diop has again exposed a neglected corner of the French colonial experience, expanding the country’s literary conversation at a time of heated debate over national identity and culture.”

Diop has again exposed a neglected corner of the French colonial experience, expanding the country’s literary conversation at a time of heated debate over national identity and culture.

Speaking to the BBC, he explained how his thematic approach allows examination of how the continent's "shared histories" - from its colonial experience to post-independence revolutionary movements and its urban future - had "shaped and reshaped" how people in Africa see themselves and their place in the world.

“One of those things that comes about from a long colonial experience is this idea that things change because somebody brings it to you — you are not the agent of change,” Michael Lujan Bevacqua, historian and curator of the Guam Museum, told me.