An internationally acclaimed writer and filmmaker, Ousmane Sembène was a self-taught man. In search of employment, Sembène traveled from his native Senegal to France, where he wrote and published his first novel, Le Docker noir (1956; Black Docker, 1987), which launched his literary career. Over the next thirty years, he wrote several novellas and novels, published short stories, and directed and produced a number of films based on his own literary works. Often referred to as a modern-day griot, a term designating the traditional African storyteller, Sembène dramatized the sociopolitical issues affecting the African people and their society.

Apart from his first work, Sembène’s novels are set primarily in Senegal. Placing less emphasis on his former preoccupation with the effects of French influence on African society, he concentrated in his subsequent works largely on issues such as corruption, poverty, illiteracy, and other social ills perpetuated by the African elite at the expense of the poorer classes. Xala focuses, in particular, on the leadership of postindependence Senegal.

In this novel the forcefulness of Sembène’s criticism is intensely conveyed through the symbolic connection established between xala and the impotence of the Senegalese leadership. A profoundly powerful work, Xala uses traditional elements to create a unique narrative style. The sense of a parable is effectively developed through the unanticipated decline of El Hadji’s business affairs. The introductory scene displays the false sense of optimism among the new African masters. By moving from the national context to El Hadji’s personal situation, the novel confronts the hero with the true reality of life in Senegal.

The majority of the story focuses on El Hadji’s unhappy married life. Through occasional flashbacks interspersed throughout the story, Sembène uses the historical past as a means to illuminate events of the present. The symbolic representation of the three wives underscores the relevance of the past to the present. Adja abandons Catholicism and converts to Islam to marry El Hadji. Her return to the old ways and her aspirations to be a model Muslim wife represent, in part, a retrogressive Africa that refuses to confront the changes of modern times. Oumi’s exaggerated imitation of French values exposes the excessive materialism adopted by members of the middle class. Representative of the younger generation, N’Gone becomes a pawn in the hands of her elders and, consequently, forfeits the opportunity to act as a progressive agent of change within society.

Through the depiction of El Hadji’s distant relationships with his three wives, Sembène focuses special attention on the problem of polygamy. Adja and Oumi feel emotionally and physically abandoned. Rama, El Hadji’s oldest child, attempts to express her dissatisfaction openly, but her small protest is squelched with a slap in the face from her father, who states that she “can be a revolutionary at the university or in the street but not in [his] house.” Rama realizes, eventually, that she is powerless to improve her mother’s moral plight.

Sembène proceeds to expose the fact that El Hadji and the other businessmen are only middlemen dependent on foreign enterprises to survive. The religious leadership is subject to similar criticism in the guise of Sereen Mada, who “only worked for bosses.” The assistance that the marabout provides El Hadji serves only to promote the limited self-interest of the latter. Sembène thereby reveals how the state of impotence permeates Senegal society.

The inconspicuous presence of the beggar is skillfully intertwined in the web of intrigue. He first appears in the story on the day when El Hadji’s xala is revealed, but it is only in the final pages of the story that he comes to the forefront as a major character, revealing himself as the author of the xala. The novel’s main theme is expressed through the beggar’s personal indictment of El Hadji: “You and your colleagues build on the misfortunes of honest, ordinary people.” Typically, it is the common people who rise up as a potential force of change and vindicate their dignity and rightful place in society.