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5th out of 92 books
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God's Bits of Wood
In 1947-48 the workers on the Dakar-Niger railway staged a strike. In this vivid, timeless novel, Ousmane Sembène envinces the color, passion, and tragedy of those formative years in the history of West Africa.
Paperback, 248 pages
Published
August 1st 2008
by Longman
(first published 1960)
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Vividly capturing the 1947-8 Dakar-Niger railway strike, God's Bit of Wood never ceases to shock, to inspire, and to ultimately shed light on an event that truly shaped the importance of the African culture. Despite its many characters and at times confusing names and places, each story of the workers and their wives, the whites and the oppressors, the beggars and the unloved, all demonstrate the immense struggle that everyone was going through during the strike and the tremendous courage it too...more
Shortly after WW2 the black rail workers on the Niger-Dakar line went on strike for six months. At the time, it was the longest labor strike in world history. This book is based on the events that surrounded the strike. It tells how community adapts as hunger and thirst set in. There are almost 45 characters in the book in three different settings, so the chapters become more like a set of short stories that are interconnected by the overall plot and a handful of selected characters. It is obvio...more
If anyone ever asks what use unions are, give this book to them. The nearest equivalent I could think of were the kaleyard Scottish novels where hard lives were put down on the page and you can feel how tough each day is. It's not a pretty novel, despite some beautiful writing here and there, but it is very much worth reading.
While this makes me slightly sick to my stomach, I find myself agreeing with the colonialist view that polygamous marriage verges on a harem. I know the male author tries to do a fair job of presenting the women as other or as strong members of society and certain characters as having crisis of faith over the issue, but mainly I felt he did this in order to soften the reader's view and to win them over.
Otherwise the book, about such an interesting subject and such a paradigm shift i...more
Otherwise the book, about such an interesting subject and such a paradigm shift i...more
I use this with my students to try to teach about West Africa. I pair it with A Grain of Wheat for an East/West thing. The structure is much easier for them than A Grain of Wheat, but I'm not going to lie and say it really resonates with them. I want to bring labor history into the classroom and thought this would be a nice way to do it. It somewhat works because the story is compelling and there are interesting excursions into romance and the nature of love in Africa vs Europe. Let's face ...more
This book was quite beautiful and not a topic I'd normally read about (a railroad strike in Senegal in, I think it was the '40s.) The prose was very simple but beautiful. It was a bit hard to feel attached to all the characters because there were so many, but that image of the protesting women dancing like a snake or something (I'm butchering it) has stayed with me. Now I wish I could find the quote.
Sadly, this book is extremely unsung. It is the African "Grapes of Wrath," in scope, politics, relevance, and in beauty of the prose. Sembene was as brilliant a film director as he was novelist. This books covers not just the events of the strike but the range of people involved, the workers, managers, and their families. Brilliant.
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I'd been wanting to read an African novel and was glad to find this per my niece's recommendation from her African history class. Great characters, though a bit hard for me to keep track of all the African names. This book has been called the African Grapes of Wrath.
A decent story but is all over the place and hard to follow. Ousmane is a film maker as well, so you can see how his mental conception of the story would have been better portrayed on film rather than in text.
The title of this book doesn't suggest how ambitious Sembène's project is. This novel almost has epic proportions, with a large cast of characters. I wished it could have been longer.
One of the best books I've ever read. Brilliant portrayal of how a railway strike all along the Niger railway line affected workers and their families. Travel from Dakar to Bamako...
Entre drame et espoir, l'histoire des grévistes de la ligne Dakar-Bamako, dont la lutte en 1947-48 annonce, du moins dans l'esprit de l'auteur, la fin prochaine du colonialisme. On s'attache vite aux personnages principaux, et la variété géographique des tableaux impose un rythme très prenant. Très belle oeuvre.
Post-colonialism! Had to keep a character list for this - if I remember right, Sembene is a screenwriter, or somehow involved in film, making for a very cinematic book.
Loved this book, the names of characters made it a little difficult but worth it. Easiest to write names down in beginning to keep them straight at first.
A solid treatment of an important but often-overlooked aspect of African history (strike on the Senegal railroad).
Gives an amazing portrait of Senegal and the tumultous forces shaping it in the mid-twentieth century.
Stephen Evans
added it
This book totally changed my perception of African culture and literature. A must read.
talks about happenings in africa.....i totally loved it....
I don't know, just wasn't into it...
The book is set in West Africa in a time of awakening for the African workers of the region. The story follows several strong characters and shows different ways in which they deal with the strike...it is a courageous tale of courageous people. The spirit that moves within this story fills me with hope that suffering creates strength to withstand anything...and eventually welcome celebration. Loss is part of life..
A beautiful study of the human spirit of endurance, and hope. Eternal an...more
A beautiful study of the human spirit of endurance, and hope. Eternal an...more
I really want to like it. The subject seemed fascinating, I was fine with the polygamy elements but what weighed the story down was the point of view hoping and getting bogged down in scenes that didn't add to the story. Vague where more detail would have been helpful didn't help the lack of cohesiveness in the middle either. A challenging read, might have been better if I'd read it in a class with more information on the author, story's history and background of the setting.
I read this book in college and just re-read it last summer. I'm so glad that i held onto it. This is a vivid book about the anti-colonial struggle in Senegal. It's inspiring in these times to read about people who make a way out of no way, who stand up to power and empower themselves. More so, a story about Africa from an African perspective, without any white man's burden bullshit, is rare and necessary.
This book made me miss Senegal even more! Granted it was set 60 years ago, so life and times were different from when I was there, but there were enough similarities to make me homesick for Senegal. It was also very interesting to learn more about the history of the railroad - I knew that it played a large role, but never really appreciated it until now.
I don't know if I loved this book just because of how beautifully it was written. It's a very aesthetically pleasing book about brutality and brave people. It was also quite fascinating, as I felt it gave me a sense of Ousmane's country and the people's struggle there, though I had never thought about it before.
This was one of the most tragic stories I've ever read. It painted so clearly the trials of living under racism, exploitation, and colonialism in a way that didn't shy away from the horror, but also left room for inspiration and hope in the everyday acts of resistance.
Slow at the start, and hard to follow the long, unfamiliar looking African names, but by the last two-thirds, I couldn't put the book down. Great story chronicling the Niger-Dakar railroad strike from the point of view of what seems like hundreds of characters.
idiosyncratic storytelling style, and the multitude of weird West african names are confusing, but I got sucked into the story. also some cool battle scenes between armed cavalry and women with pots.
Oooh, I am disappointed that I was disappointed with this work. Somehow it just failed to keep my attention. And I generally like Ousmane Sembene. Maybe I'll try it again another time. . . .
My first encounter with world lit. This is such a well-done, sweeping epic of social struggle, especially for a wide-eyed college sophomore. (Poco lit; 300 pages)
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Ousmane Sembène often credited in the French style as Sembène Ousmane in articles and reference works, was a Senegalese film director, producer and writer. The Los Angeles Times considered him one of the greatest authors of Africa and has often been called the "Father of African film."
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“Real misfortune is not just a matter of being hungry and thirsty; it is a matter of knowing that there are people who want you to be hungry and thirsty”
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5 people liked it
“At the moment the eyes of the body closed, the eyes of the mind were opened.”
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2 people liked it
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