Loosely based on the author's hometown of Kita, Mali,[1] the novel tells the story of a recently returned lieutenant from the French Colonial Army, Siriman Keita, and his struggle to adjust to his village's changing customs.

[5] He returns to find Awa pregnant by a young pro-independence activist, but having changed during his incarceration, the lieutenant forgives her betrayal and adopts the coming child as his own.

In this reading, Siriman Keita is both oppressed by tradition in the form of his aggressive (and likely homicidal) brother, but also resents the changes that the youth-led independence movement are bringing to his country.

Ultimately, however, the lieutenant comes to see that tradition "is not a monolith, but rather an edifice of which the fissures must always furnish an outlet for the creative energies of individuals and young innovators.

Austen argues that in this respect, the novels are highly influenced by Diabaté's early writings on the similarly structured Epic of Sundiata, which he calls "an inescapable intertext" for works from Maninke culture.