I'm Christopher Leiden. This is open source. The only way into this podcast is a long leap

head first into post-colonial French fiction of all things and a novel titled The Most Secret Memory of Men.

Leap with me, listeners, is not a chance you'll be disappointed.

Our guest is the toast of literary Paris, the first

novelist from Sub-Saharan Africa to win France's highest book prize, the Gancour.

Muhammad Bughar Sarr.

Welcome to the States.

Thank you, Chris.

I feel I almost know you because the first thing we feel in your magical book is you.

The doctor's son from Dakar in Senegal, eldest of seven sons, military school, advanced education in France, and now of course

the Gungkor.

At the start of your book, we're at play in a Parisian nest of artists and writers,

hustlers and searchers, men, women out of France's one-time colonies, Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast.

They're watching the World Cup, they're smoking weed, they're making love, but they're thinking

about literature.

This is our life, yes, one writer says, but we also talk about it because talking

about it keeps it alive.

And as long as it's alive, our lives, even if they're pointless, even if they're tragically comical and insignificant,

won't be completely wasted.

We have to behave as if literature were the most important thing on earth.

Sounds like you talking, your energy, your ambition, your confidence, no matter what.

locate the feeling inside this young hot shot's head, the sense of a mad gamble, the sacrifice

...