Ambiguous adventure
By: Cheikh Hamidou Kane
Publisher: Melville House Pub.
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Brooklyn, N.Y
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9781612190549
Subjects: FICTION / Literary
Work titles: Aventure ambiguë
Description: "The celebrated classic by a groundbreaking figure in African  literature addresses a critical contemporary issue--the collision of  Islamic African values and Western culture  Hailed by Chinua  Achebe as one of the greatest African novels ever written, this  long-unavailable classic tells the tale of young Samba Diallo, a devout  pupil in a Koranic religious school in Senegal whose parents send him to  Paris to study philosophy. Unknown to Samba, it is his family's  desperate attempt to better understand the French colonial forces  transforming their traditional way of life.  But for Samba, it's  an exciting adventure, and once in France he excels at his new studies  and is delighted by both the French language and his new "marvelous  comprehension and total communion" with the Western world. But Samba's  joy soon turns to doubt, as he finds himself torn between the  materialistic secularism and isolation of French civilization and the  deeper spiritual influences of his homeland. As Samba puts it: "I have  become the two."  Written in an elegant, lyrical prose, Ambiguous  Adventure is a masterful expression of the immigrant experience and the  repercussions of colonialism, and a great work of literature about the  uneasy relationship between Islamic Africa and the West--a relationship  more important today than ever before"--
Notes: "Originally published in French as L'aventure ambique"--T.p. verso.