Berlin Fellowship 2020 — Literature
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr
*1990 in Dakar (SN),
lives in Paris (FR)
Vita
I was born in Senegal. I went to college and high school at a military institute. Then I came to France and studied literature and philosophy in Paris. I'm very interested in postcolonial and de-colonial works and thoughts. I have published three novels so far; all of them question the complexity of some contemporary situations, in various places (terrorism in West Africa; hospitality (or not) towards immigrants in Sicily; homosexuality in Senegal). One could say that those novels focused on a political and social approach. My current obsession is more with literature: its power, possibilities, failures, secrets. What do (my) people expect from a writer and what do I expect from literature?
Residency
Living through the experience of literature: this will be the main point of my next novel. Of all the questions I have, one is very simple: Did I choose to write? I never met my father's father, Mbougar 1st. But I have been told many incredible stories about this legendary man, who was a traditional doctor, a wizard, an enlightened mind, a (very) big-footed and barefoot man and a kind of "diviner" all at once. Last year, I found out about a "prophecy" he supposedly made half a century before I came into the world: He "saw" one of his grandsons, "who would live through ink". I'd like to write something around that: not particularly about my grandfather or me, but more broadly about the multiple ways a deep vocation occurs in a biography, through ages, stories, myths and reality.Living through the experience of literature: this will be the main point of my next novel. Of all the questions I have, one is very simple: Did I choose to write? I never met my father's father, Mbougar 1st. But I have been told many incredible stories about this legendary man, who was a traditional doctor, a wizard, an enlightened mind, a (very) big-footed and barefoot man and a kind of "diviner" all at once. Last year, I found out about a "prophecy" he supposedly made half a century before I came into the world: He "saw" one of his grandsons, "who would live through ink". I'd like to write something around that: not particularly about my grandfather or me, but more broadly about the multiple ways a deep vocation occurs in a biography, through ages, stories, myths and reality.