His research, at the University of Pau in south-west France, focuses on representations of Africa in 18th-century accounts and images by travellers.

[1] Diop received the 2021 International Booker Prize for his novel At Night All Blood Is Black as the first French author (translated by Anna Moschovakis).

[6] In 2018, he published his first full-length scholarly work, Rhétorique nègre au xviiie siècle, which deals with the representation of Africans in 18th-century travel writing and abolitionist texts.

The main character, Alfa Ndiaye, descends into madness following the death of a childhood friend and inflicts extreme brutality upon his German enemies.

"[10] Because his great-grandfather refused to speak about the war Diop read many published accounts regarding the Tirailleurs' service.

[11] Frère d'âme was published in English translation in November 2020 under the title At Night All Blood Is Black.

[11][3] Diop's third novel, Beyond the Door of No Return, is set in the early 1800s and deals with one Frenchman's obsession with the mysterious fate of an escaped slave in Senegal against the backdrop of the French colonial occupation.