Book Review: ‘The Silence of the Choir,’ by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr

THE SILENCE OF THE CHOIR, by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr. Translated by Alison Anderson.

At some point in recent history, the merits of reading literary fiction became inextricably entwined with the genre’s potential to instill empathy, particularly for characters whose lives are radically different from our own. In this context, literature has tangible (and perhaps commercial) value in no small part because of our hope that what is true on the page might be true in reality. If we encounter unknown, unfamiliar or even unlikable characters in a novel, and still find room in our hearts to care for them, then perhaps we will be more likely to do so when such figures wash up on our own shores.

Mohamed Mbougar Sarr’s second novel, “The Silence of the Choir,” opens with the arrival of 72 migrants in a fictional Sicilian village called Altino, an ideal narrative framework to test a novel’s empathetic capacity. The migrants, who come from a range of African countries, including Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana and Mali, are referred to collectively as the ragazzi, Italian for “the guys.” They represent one side of an equation that brings two dramatically different ways of being into contact. On the other side lie Altino’s residents: the aid workers, poets, priests, butchers, doctors and politicians who live in the shadow of Mount Etna and contend with the ragazzi’s arrival.

The migrants may be the newcomers, but Sarr is too interesting and thoughtful a writer to simply answer the inevitable question: Will the good people of Altino learn to care about these men? His interest, rather, is in finding what kind of narrative form, if any, is best suited to such a task. In the process, Sarr employs almost every literary form available, including monologues, historical interludes and somewhat didactic dialogues about the malicious plans of a far-right politician.

The novel’s more conventional emotional heart resides in the journal entries of Jogoy, who arrived in Sicily from Senegal years before the rest of the migrants and now works as a translator for a resettlement agency. The intimacy and lyrical grace of his accounts stand in stark contrast to the voice of the far-right politician, as well as the haunted, guilt-ridden voice of Fousseyni Traoré, a Malian refugee. Traoré’s story is so hard to tell that Sarr interrupts the narration halfway through and turns it into a play.

More frequently, though, Sarr uses a range of third-person perspectives that vary in scope and style. Alison Anderson’s deft translation is all the more impressive for the ease with which she manages these shifts. Characters aren’t revealed so much as they are refracted through different narrative lenses, allowing us to consider how a story’s form, perhaps more than the story itself, can determine how we understand a person.