This book is about a story (Ousmane Sembene's Xala), about a time (the aftermath of Senegalese Independence), and about a place (Dakar, the capital of Senegal). It's also about the collaboration between an artist and an anthropologist, who have reacted in their different mediums to the story, time and place, and to what the other made of them ....' So opens a unique account in a genre of its own devising that will engage readers interested in Sembene Ousmane as writer and film director, in Senegal, in African film, in West Africa, or in books designed to be desirable objects in their own right.

'A lovely example of the sort of creative renewal badly needed in African and Africanist anthropology -- frontier conversations across disciplines and with interlocutors outside of the -- to capture the intricacies and nuanced complexities of Africa and Africans.' -- Francis B. Nyamnjoh, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Cape Town