David Diop

David Diop (born 24 February 1966) is a French novelist and academic, who specializes in 18th-century French and Francophone African literature. His research, at the University of Pau in south-west France, focuses on representations of Africa in 18th-century accounts and images by travellers. Diop received the 2021 International Booker Prize for his novel At Night All Blood Is Black (translated by Anna Moschovakis), becoming the first French author to win the award. The novel was also shortlisted for ten French awards and won them in other countries.

Biography David Diop was born in Paris in 1966 to a French mother and a Senegalese father. He moved to Dakar at the age of five and spent the majority of his childhood in Senegal before returning to study in France at the age of 18 after finishing high school. Diop received a doctorate from the Sorbonne for his studies on 18th-century French literature.

In 1998, he became a lecturer in literature at the University of Pau and the Adour Region specialising in 18th-century French literature and African French literature. In 2009 he was appointed to head a research group on the representation of Africa and Africans in 17th- and 18th-century European literature. He received his habilitation in 2014. He lives in Pau. Because his great-grandfather refused to speak about the war Diop read many published accounts regarding the Tirailleurs' service. In 2018 Diop received the Students' Prix Goncourt for the novel. He also won the Swiss Prix Ahmadou-Kourouma. Together with his translator Anna Moschovakis, with whom he split the £50,000 winnings, he won ⁦the 2021 International Booker Prize. This made him the first French author and first person of an African heritage to win the prize.

The novel has been translated into more than 30 languages. The Italian translation has won the Strega European Prize, and the Dutch translation has won the Europese Literatuurprijs.

In 2025, Beyond the Door of No Return made the longlist for the International Dublin Literary Award.