Xala Back Girl

I may be speaking only for myself, but I found it refreshing to read something that didn't make me want to go home and listen to Morrissey until I fell asleep with tears glistening on my cheeks. Not that Xala fails to engage in serious ideas or confront important issues in African history and culture. It certainly doesn't. But the novel breathes with a vibrancy and knowledge of humanity that, without artifice, that distinguishes it from some of the other things we have been reading.

Of course, the end of the novel justifiably deserves comment. The questions it raises, about liberty, about revolution, about class and justice, are ones that we still grapple with all over the world today. Xala gives us no easy answers; it refuses even to give us recognizable heroes and villains.

This adorable dog's name is Xala. It has nothing to do with the novel Xala.