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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