Fiction1973Catalog context only

Xala

Ousmane Sembène
Overview
Region

West Africa

Senegal

Era

Post-colonial

Language

French

Genre

Fiction

About This Work

El Hadji Abdou Kader Bèye, a Senegalese businessman who takes a third wife, discovers he has been struck with xala — impotence. A satirical allegory of the African bourgeoisie's complicity with neo-colonialism.

Literary Significance

Sembène adapted it into one of his most celebrated films; a withering satire of post-independence African elites

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El Hadji Abdou Kader Bèye, a Senegalese businessman who takes a third wife, discovers he has been struck with xala — impotence. A satirical allegory of the African bourgeoisie's complicity with neo-colonialism. Sembène adapted it into one of his most celebrated films; a withering satire of post-independence African elites

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