The celebrated classic by a groundbreaking figure in African literature addresses a critical contemporary issue--the collision of Islamic African values and Western culture. 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.