“Masks revealed” by Fadel Ndaw: A successful first dive for the hydraulic engineer
A leading engineer in the water and sanitation sector, former World Bank expert, Fadel Ndaw is embarking on a new trajectory: that of novelistic writing. With Masks Unveiled, his first novel, he takes the plunge and explores the duality of beings, faith, desire and multiple identities, drawing on a life made of travel, scientific rigor and long-suppressed literary passion.
For forty years, Fadel Ndaw helped shape public water policies in Senegal and elsewhere in Africa. He was responsible for major water projects, notably the one which made it possible to reduce the water supply deficit in Dakar in 1996. From the reform of the sector which gave birth to Sones, Sde (current Sen’eau) and ONAS, to the coordination of the Millennium Drinking Water and Sanitation Program (Pepam), his mark is tangible.
After this national career, the engineer became a water and sanitation expert at the World Bank, working in Burkina Faso, Egypt, Morocco and Ivory Coast. Two years after retiring, he changed gears and found literature a real source of inspiration. “I retired to enjoy my free time. And I was able to devote myself to writing,” he confides.
Sequel that flows naturally
Writing, in reality, is not a late discovery. She has accompanied Fadel Ndaw since adolescence. A scientific student and voracious reader, he devoured Jules Verne, Dickens and Victor Hugo. “In first grade, my French teacher said to me: “But what are you doing here as a scientist?” », he says, smirking. He then wrote poems and short stories, took part in the General French Competition and won a prize. A budding vocation, put on hold by a demanding career.
Today, Fadel Ndaw reconnects with his first love, literature. From reader to poet, he first tried his hand at writing an autobiography. His work Parcours au fil de l’eau was thus born as if to serve as an aqueduct between him and his past life punctuated by waves of satisfaction. In his first born, he retraces forty years of his career, mixing technical expertise and anecdotes from the field. Inspiration flowed like a torrent from him, enough to give him the courage to publish his first novel. Masques unveiled is the fruit of a long but intense maturation. “It took me a year. I had several ideas, but this is the one that stood out to me,” he explains, his eyes sparkling.
A novel, a flow of themes
The novel follows Sobel Diouf, a Senegalese engineer from Fandène, torn between faith and desire, between social stability and inner fissures. Facing him, Mona Salé, Italian-Jordanian journalist, a moving and elusive figure. The story unfolds between Milan, Dakar and Amman, against a backdrop of the oil industry, corruption, the quest for identity and intimate tensions. “The book shows the difficulty of maintaining one’s own identity in this world,” summarizes the author.
The notion of duality is at the heart of the text. “The novel is crossed by the duality of the characters. There is what we see and what is true, what is hidden,” insists Fadel Ndaw. Sobel, a respected believer, husband and father, carries within him old, family, emotional and cultural wounds. “We see a person who ticks all the boxes, but deep down, there are things that have marked them and that we don’t see.”
The title Masks Unveiled then takes on its full meaning. “We generally only see what we are shown. We rarely see what is hidden behind the masks,” he says. Through his characters, the author questions faith, freedom, the weight of social and religious norms, but also the complexity of human trajectories.
The journey occupies a central place in the novel, as in the life of its author. “All the places that I describe are places that I have lived,” he explains. The airport of Jeddah, the canals of Milan, the Jordanian desert and the Senegalese villages are rendered with assumed sensory precision. A real trip without the need for a passport, much less a visa. “When I describe a scene, I want the reader to see, feel, travel without moving.” A successful bet!
Today, Fadel Ndaw is not urgently planning a second novel. “I will first digest this first book,” he confides, while admitting that other ideas are already germinating. Enough to quench any reader thirsty for knowledge.
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