Character Analysis
A fellow inmate at Carson City, O'Neal El opens Shaka's eyes to a whole world of reading…and ultimately writing.
The literary world cracks open for Shaka because O'Neal is writing a book. When Shaka first hears this, he thinks it's funny that another prisoner is writing a book, but he's bored so he decides to read some of it. Shaka gets really pulled into the stories, and O'Neal El points him to other similar writers in the prison library. That becomes the start of Shaka's journey of reading and writing, two of the things that really help him transform his life over time.