Xala is sandwiched chronologically by two works, Le mandat suivi de blanche genèse (The Money Order with White Genesis) (1966) and Le dernier de l'empire (The Last of the Empire) (1981) , which also deal with the subject matter of post-colonial Senegal. For a sense for the span of Sembène’s career, works of interest include Le docker noir (1956), his first published novel; Le noire de… (Black Girl) (1966), his first feature film, described by The New York Times as "one of those works of art that is at once powerfully of its moment and permanently contemporary"; Guelwaar (1996), his last published novel; and Moolaadé (2004), his most recent feature film.
Sembène went through an important...
