![]() ![]() We are more than brothers because we chose each other as brothers. Because of that, you can make fun of me, I can cry in front of you, I can ask you anything. You lived at my house, I watched you grow up and you watched me. We’re the same age, we were circumcised on the same day. They have shared everything together, as Mademba explains: Alfa’s Patroclus, his “more-than-brother” (like the Iliad their relationship is difficult to pin down) is Mademba Diop, whose mother adopted Alfa when his own mother vanished. There is more than a little of Achilles’ wrath in Alfa Ndiaye, the narrator of this short and immaculate novel of two 20-year-old Senegalese men fighting on the Western Front in France. The epic poem begins, “Wrath – sing, goddess, of the ruinous wrath of Peleus’ son Achilles”, and over twenty four books rarely wavers from this focus. ![]() In the Iliad, the Greek hero Achilles finally goes mad with rage when his beloved companion Patroclus is killed on the battlefield of Troy. ![]()
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