Kane’s sombre reflection on the possibility of a reconciliation between the precepts and practices of African Islamic traditions and the philosophical heritage of France was, at the time of its publication in 1962, felt to embody all the issues which serve as a driving force for African writing in French.


The book opens with its hero, Samba Diallo, a scion of the noble Diallobés clan, undergoing Koranic instruction in the house of the region’s greatest scholar. The teacher is old, but he recognises in Samba a student of rare aptitude. Because of this he is unrelenting with the young boy, punishing him with an apparent ruthlessness for the slightest slip in his recitation of the sacred words. But Samba has only the greatest respect for his teacher and his only ambition is to follow in his footsteps. Fate, however, is to decree otherwise.


The French have colonised the lands of the Diallobé and are busy building their own schools. The leaders of the people decree that in order to understand their defeat on the field of battle it is necessary for their children to be sent to these new schools in order to learn the wisdom that imparts to the French their mastery. The children of the Diallobé must learn themselves ‘how better to join wood to wood’.


Because of his abilities and social standing Samba is selected to be among the first to undertake this experiment. The book follows Samba to Paris where he does battle with the demons of continental philosophy in his search for the secrets of the West. But the further he goes with his studies the more uncomfortable he feels within himself. Like the French around him he senses that he is losing the intimate connection with death that his religious training bequeathed to him. There is no reconciling the Koran with this deathless world and he returns home, his studies incomplete. There he finds the great teacher of the Diallobé is dead and in a cruel, ironic twist Samba will soon join him. By ending thus, Kane’s studied saga reminds us that there are no simple solutions.

‘The teacher had shifted the grip of his fingernails, and they were now piercing the cartilage at another place. The child’s ear, already white with scarcely healed scars, was bleeding anew. Samba Diallo’s whole body was trembling and he was trying his hardest to recite his verses correctly, and to restrain the whimpering that pain was wresting from him.’ p3-4