With our correspondent in Dakar, Charlotte Idrac

Crowned « best student in Senegal », enrolled in a scientific preparatory program at the prestigious Lycée Louis le Grand in Paris, Diary Sow is also the author of a novel published in January 2020, Under the Face of an Angel. And it is by promoting her second book that she resurfaced on social media.

In a three-minute video clip posted on Diary Sow's Instagram account –now verified– a female voice provides a preview of her new novel, titled And the Masks Fall!, the story of a « teenager with a painful past » who flees her family home.

Relief and admiration for some. A publicity stunt for others. She does not mention her runaway which moved the entire country. But in the comments accompanying the clip, Diary Sow subsequently publishes some « clarifications ».

« This video, born in an 'idle' hour, in a troubled period, led you to sometimes incorrect conclusions », writes the author, who emphasizes that she completed writing the novel « well before all these events ».

And she continues: « To resume writing, (…) only to give a message of hope, of renewal perhaps. I must move forward ». Diary Sow also states that the story is « entirely fictional », the « similarities with the current situation are purely coincidental ».

Diary Sow therefore chose to express herself in writing. Many hoped to see or hear her. In a message during her reappearance two weeks ago, her mentor and sponsor, the Minister of Water, stated: « she needs peace of mind ».