Mbougar, Sarr, Mohamed, “La más recóndita memoria de los hombres”. Barcelona: Anagrama, 2022, 462 pages Memory and oblivion in “La más recóndita memoria de los hombres” by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr

Abstract

La más recóndita memoria de los hombres was published in Paris in August 2021 by the French publisher Philippe Rey and the Senegalese publisher Jimsaan; in Spanish, the publication rights are granted to the Spanish publisher Anagrama. Reading Mbougar's book is an incredible labyrinth of cultured, illuminating, and fascinating writing. The story is characterized by a narrative proposal of “mise en abyme” a literary procedure that overlaps several stories within a great story in the manner of the Russian matryoshka game. Diégane Latyr Faye, a young Senegalese writer, discovers a forgotten book in Paris: The Labyrinth of the Inhuman; manuscript published in 1938 by an African writer named T.C Elimane, a mysterious and tormented man after being accused of plagiarism. Diégane embarks on an unstoppable quest to discover what is hidden behind the author and his disappearance from the French literary scene. The search for the forgotten author also takes the young writer on a journey through the writing process of literature and its contradictions.