Book Club: Beyond the Door of No Return by David Diop

Join us to discuss Beyond the Door of No Return by David Diop.

The meet-up will be in Zurich. We’ll share the location closer to the date.

About the book:
Paris, 1806. The renowned botanist Michel Adanson lies on his deathbed, the masterwork to which he dedicated his life still incomplete. As he expires, the last word to escape his lips is a woman’s name: Maram.

The key to this mysterious woman’s identity is Adanson’s unpublished memoir of the years he spent in Senegal, concealed in a secret compartment in a chest of drawers. Therein lies a story as fantastical as it is tragic: Maram, it turns out, is none other than the fabled revenant. A young woman of noble birth from the kingdom of Waalo, Maram was sold into slavery but managed to escape from the Island of Gorée―a major embarkation point of the transatlantic slave trade―to a small village hidden in the forest. While on a research expedition in West Africa as a young man, Adanson hears the story of the revenant and becomes obsessed with finding her. Accompanied by his guide, he ventures deep into the Senegalese bush on a journey that reveals not only the savagery of the French colonial occupation but also the unlikely transports of the human heart.

About us:
The Sisterhood Book Club meets once a month to discuss books by authors of African descent. The books are usually a starting point for deeper discussions about life. We meet in person, either at one of our members' homes or in cosy, kid-friendly places in Zurich.

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