Brotherhood

The Senegalese author’s prize-winning novel explores brutality and resistance in a fictional North African city gripped by a fundamentalist regime.

Under the regime of the so-called Brotherhood, two young people are publicly executed for having loved each other. In response, their mothers begin a secret correspondence, their only outlet for the grief they share.

Spurred by The Brotherhood’s escalating brutality, a band of intellectuals seeks to foment rebellion by publishing an underground newspaper. Menawhile, the regime’s leader undertakes a personal crusade to find the responsible parties, and bring them to his own sense of justice.

In Brotherhood, Mbougar Sarr explores how resistance and heroism can often give way to cowardice, all while giving voice to the personal struggles of each of his characters as they try to salvage the values they hold most dear.

Winner of the French Voices Grand Prize, Prix Ahmadou Kourouma, and Grand Prix du Roman Métis