Xala

Literally meaning the curse, the reader who knows this term would be much more enlightened going into reading this short novel than the reader who doesn't know.

As I began reading Xala, I was shocked at the content. From announcements in class, I knew that this novel was about polygamy, but I never would have guessed that it would have been about the impotence of a man with several wives.
When I began looking for more information on Xala for this class, the first thing that came up on a Google search is the Wikipedia page that tells about the movie of Xala. Talking to another student in the class, we decided that it would be interesting to watch because now we know the content, which we both decided is quite uncommon and would probably make an interesting film.

I decided to look at the author of Xala, Ousmane Sembène. Wikipedia says that he grew up in Senegal, learned three languages (French, Arabic, and Wolof) and served in the French army, among other things.

It was interesting for me to learn about Sembène so that I could understand more about him as an author. When I know more about an author, it helps gives validity to his work and helps me to better understand when there may be significant information in a work. For instance, in Xala, it is important for me to know about his experience with the languages of Senegal and his experience in the army for me to understand why some scenes are more important than they seem at face value. One particular scene was the one where Rama is pulled over by a police officer and she speaks to the officer in Wolof while Pathe speaks to him in French.