The Living Dead Tirailleurs : Crushing Limitations of Labour in David Diop’s Frère d’Âme

The living dead is a powerful figure. In general it is associated with horror and a mindless mass bent on feeding off the living. However, the figure of the living dead may be adapted to many different contexts. Tobias Warner has shown that the living dead readily lends itself to the study of the socio-economic situation in post-colonial Africa. By extending the historical context to colonial Senegal before and during World War One, I demonstrate that the theme of the living dead permeates an earlier period. In order to situate the context and examples, I use the work of author David Diop Frère d’Âme. This article offers a pivot away from scholarship analysing the trauma of WWI by focusing on socio-economic concerns present in Diop’s work. The welding together of these sources creates a larger picture of how the living dead represent the limitations of economic self-realization in Africa.