Ambiguous Adventure
Cheikh Hamidou Kane
A boy caught between the Quran and Descartes.
Kane's semi-autobiographical novel sends Samba Diallo from a rigorous Quranic education among the Diallobe to a French schooling that hollows out his faith. Less plot than meditation, it renders the colonial encounter as a metaphysical wound -- the price of Western reason paid in spiritual loss -- and became a defining philosophical statement of Francophone West Africa.
Its legacy. It remains a standard reference in debates on Islam, education, and colonialism.
- Author
- Cheikh Hamidou Kane
- First published
- 1961
- Genre
- Novel
- Theme
- The West African Novel
More from The West African Novel
- Things Fall Apart — Chinua Achebe
The novel that answered colonial fiction from the inside.
- Arrow of God — Chinua Achebe
A priest, a god, and the machinery of indirect rule.
- The Palm-Wine Drinkard — Amos Tutuola
A quest through the land of the dead, told in improvised English.
- Jagua Nana — Cyprian Ekwensi
Lagos nightlife through the eyes of an aging good-time woman.