David Diop wins International Booker for ‘frightening’ At Night All Blood Is Black

Diop is the first French writer to win the prize for translated fiction - split with his translator Anna Moschovakis - for novel about a Senegalese soldier fighting for France in the first world war

David Diop has become the first French novelist to win the International Booker prize for translated fiction with At Night All Blood Is Black, his first novel translated into English.

Diop, the author of two novels, and his translator Anna Moschovakis, split the 50,000 annual prize, which goes to the best author and translator of a work translated into English. At Night All Blood Is Black follows Alfa Ndiaye, a Senegalese soldier fighting for France in the first world war, whose descent into madness after the death of a childhood friend on the frontline begins to show itself in extreme brutality against enemy German soldiers in the trenches.