When he fails, do like me: think about free elephant ride through Africa for hundreds and hundreds of wonderful animals that nothing could be built—either a wall or a fence of barbed wire—passing large open spaces and crush everything in its path, and destroying everything—while they live, nothing is able to stop them—what freedom and! And even when they are no longer alive, who knows, perhaps continue to race elsewhere still free. So you begin to torment your claustrophobia, barbed wire, reinforced concrete, complete materialism imagine herds of elephants of freedom, follow them with his eyes never left them on their run and will see you soon feel better ... "For the novel The Roots of Heaven, Gary received the Prix Goncourt for fiction. Translated and republished in many countries around the world, the novel was finally published in Bulgarian. A film version by John Huston starring Juliette Gréco, Errol Flynn, and Howard Trevard was released in 1958.

    

    The novel follows a London-educated black African, Michael Udomo, who returns to Africa to become a revolutionary leader in the fictional country of Panafrica.

    In this paradoxical harmony, the best is revealed. The word of David Diop testifies to this admirable and difficult place. David Diop knew Africa by heart, in its depths, in its living sources, in its people, that is, in its truth. He knew it in its fragility and its caricatures, avatars of an Africa sold and exploited at the markets of history. The poet lived this tension, heavy with this suffering, but carried forward by the hope that the vitality of the peoples of Africa inspires. This dual postulation marks his approach as a committed Negro-African writer, lucid and rigorous in his fight. That's why these beautiful and proud texts remain so close to us, fraternal and always exemplary.