In Finzan, Sissoko raises one of the most important issues of African rural life, the status of women, in a style accessible to every villager. Finzan tells the story of two women's rebellion. Nanyuma, a young widow, defies her brother-in-law, the village fool, when he asserts his traditional right to "inherit" her. Fili, a young woman sent from the city by her conservative father, is brutally circumcised by village women over her objections. Sissoko weaves these two stories together into a painfully realistic picture of traditional village society tearing itself apart because it is unable to free itself from the past. "Finzan casts a withering eye on the traditions that keep women bound in the name of binding society together. And it does so by weaving a lively script around an issue it takes deadly seriously." ("Africa through African Eyes," PFA '91).