Meet Senegal’s Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, the youngest winner of the World Literature Prize

Senegalese writer, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, is the youngest winner of the World Literature Prize.

The 28-year-old was awarded the prize for his book, Silence of the Heart, published by Présence Africaine.

The novel looks at the lives of 72 male immigrants called the ragazzi in the Sicilian countryside.  Their arrival, although supported by the Santa Marta association, scrambles the lives of the people in the small town. 

The townspeople have to contend with the ragazzi, which includes an atypical priest who rewrites their stories, a woman committed to offering them asylum, a man determined to refuse them, a former ragazzo became an interpreter or a wild poet who no longer writes. Their encounter with these men forces them to interrogate their beliefs. 

Sarr received his prize of  3,000 euros, alongside  Icelandic writer Einar Mar Gudmundsson, who won the  International World Literature Prize for the family saga, The Kings of Iceland.

This is Sarr’s second novel after Earth surrounded