A powerful, unsettling, universal novel about love and identity

“For as long as I can remember, I was never taught how to love. I must say, things haven’t changed much”: So begins the nameless protagonist’s journal. An anthropologist from Senegal, thirty-three years of age (half of which spent in France), he doesn’t know how to love, or who to be. 

Various encounters draw him out of self-imposed isolation, but his emotional journey is chaotic and marked by an inability to open up to others. Questions of identity plague him, torn as he is between feeling French or Senegalese, and trapped in a paradoxical work routine that consists of researching an Africa whose codes he no longer understands. 

By turn cynical, melancholic, tender and euphoric, Black Male is a reflection on racism and de-colonisation, and a vibrant, incisive narrative that takes us right inside the life of an immigrant in search of simple happiness, love, and freedom. 

Elgas
Elgas is a journalist, writer, and holds a doctorate in sociology. He was born in Saint-Louis, grew up in Ziguinchor, Senegal, and has lived in France for about fifteen years. He published a travelogue, Un Dieu et des mœurs (Présence Africaine, 2015). Black Male is his first novel.