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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 843
EAN num: 9780435909598
ISBN number: 0435909592
Label: Heinemann
Manufacturer: Heinemann
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 256
Printing Date: February 01, 1996
Publishing house: Heinemann
Sale Popularity Level: 20216
Studio: Heinemann
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Product Description:
In 1947-48 the workers on the Dakar-Niger railway staged a strike. In this vivid, timeless novel, Sembene Ousmane envinces the color, passion, and tragedy of those formative years in the history of West Africa.
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Rated by buyers 
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Ousmane builds a world on a grand scale. In this fictional account of the 1947-1948 strike on the Dakar-Niger Railroad, Ousmane attempts to cover the whole strike. He creates the leaders, the followers and the imperialists. From the ends of the line in Bamako and Dakar to every city in between, there are characters that are built to show the effects on not only the workers, but also, those who do not work on the line, farmers, shopkeepers and the women who depend on their men's income.
It is too grand for 240 pages, however. Each of the characters is incomplete and one only gets a snapshot. The slices are enjoyable, yet one wants more. Perhaps, if he had tried to make it deeper and wider the book would have come off as one of the greats. Instead, it seems more like an incomplete outline of what he wanted to write. I definitely do not put it as a must read. Instead, I would suggest many other books from Western Africa should be read first.
Rated by buyers 
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I am sad to say that even though I have read a great deal of French literature, my passion for African literature was confined until recently to anglophone writers. I don't know why. It was a mistake! I absolutely loved this book. It really was the African Germinal, but by comparing it to Emile Zola's 19th century book about French miners, I in no way mean to diminish the originality of Ousmane's contribution. Germinal is one of my favorite novels of all time, and this one was equally good. It was so moving, and often sad, but also, incredibly uplifting. Unlike Germinal, however, it left me with a feeling of hope and inspiration. The ending is so much more promising than Zola's. I'm getting ahead of myself. There is so much to praise.
First of all, Ousmane, who we recently lost, writes with a lyrical genius, a kind of epic prose that makes you want to linger on his every word. Secondly, he has such great insight into the imperial mentality, which has changed very little, whether we are talking about "formal" colonialism (this novel describes a railworker strike in 1940s ) or today's variety. He shows colonial mentalities for what they were and are-their paternalism, their patronizing condenscention, their contempt for the humanity of others. But he also has-this brings me to my third major point of praise- these great heroes, these simple men and women (he is such a great feminist!) who bring dignity and courage to everything they do and say. They find their own worth in the strike, and become fulfilled by it.
Like Zola, Ousmane vividly and thrillingly evokes the privation and misery that working people who strike against a powerful corporation must endure, but unlike Zola, Ousmane's characters find themselves, their souls, and real meaning in their lives through striking-striking is what gives them the moral and intellectual power to force the colonists to recognize them as equals.
Rated by buyers 
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Based on the 1947 strike that occurred in Senegal, God's Bits of Wood by Sembene Ousmane, explores the violent yet historic struggle between the French colonial powers and Africans railroad workers. The story begins with the emergence of a historic strike that occurred throughout a span of two years. Organized by a group of African men and women, they bound together and overcame social inequality and hardship. The characters within the novel resembled the reactions of the colonized continent and its resistance against the French colonial power. The idea of the African people uniting together and evolving as one became a symbolic theme for African nationalism and social justice.
As a member of the French Communist Party and a union organizer, Ousmane's work reflected his solutions to the conflict through the lenses of the working class. However, since the idea that colonialism was associated to capitalism, many African intellects rejected the notion of capitalism and found socialism comforting. Many of them like Ousemane, recognized that as one of the aftereffects of WWII, socialist movements were a necessity for the greater good of Africa. As the novel progresses, capitalism became the economic system that transformed Africa and changed the way people lived forever. However, it also created the social stratification between the people that colonized the continent, and the people who were colonized.
Like most European settlers and workers who arrived in Africa, it was a big piece of pie that many saw as a profit making opportunity. In the novel, Dejean, the French regional director of the railroad project, resembled the very nature of France's objective in Africa.
"Dejean had been an ambitious clerk, who arrived in the colony with the intention of making his fortune in the shortest possible time... That very morning he had refused to see the representatives of the workers. He knew that among them were the sons of the same men whose movement he had crushed nine years before, and he had no intention of yielding now... First they must go back to work; that was all there was to it" (P29).
Unwilling to accommodate and work out a resolution with the railroad workers, his arrogance and superiority marked him as the antagonist in the novel. It had been 20 years since his arrival to the Dark Continent. Colonial power had already extended its foothold deeply into the lives of Africans. Needless to say, these infrastructures that the colonial power has inserted upon Africans, created a dependency between the African workers and their French employers.
Smokes of Savanna also become a symbolic force that incorporated infrastructures created in the colony as a new way of life. As Bakayoko has described it in regards to his guidance to the strike, "I take a sense of absolute identity with everything that is in the train... My role then is nothing except to guide that machine to the spot where it is supposed to go. I don't know any longer whether it is my heart that is beating to the rhythm of the engine, or the engine to the rhythm of my heart. And for me, that is the way it has to be with this strike - we must all take on a sense of identity with it...'" (P210). The workers are now being identified like as an unstoppable force. And as they unite to become one, they must face the obstacles and fight like never before.
Although the novel's primary focus was on the progression of the strike, it also focused on a multitude of changing social ideologies and gender identities. Social construction of class and gender changed drastically from pre-colonial African traditions, purely as a result of the colonial projects. These projects created oppression and hardship for many of the Africans that were forced to live by this new system. Consequently, it created a new demand to change social construction of gender identity as well.
Although the author did not give any specific terms to label these men and women who evolved throughout the strike, the idea behind this change can be correlated to modern day social feminism. Colonial oppression forced Africans to strike out of their preconceived roles and traditions, and establish a new breed of men and women.
During the strike, the French employers endeavor to discourage the strikers by shortening their resources through inserting pressure on local merchants. It was this hardship that men who were once the breadwinners began to realize the importance of their female companions. "And the men began to understand that if the times were bringing forth a new breed of men; they were also bringing forth a new breed of women" (P34). It was the women who went to salvage food for the family, and it was also the women who led the marches across the cities, and ousted the French soldiers in face to face confrontations. The changing role of African women during the strike can also be examined through the analysis of ... Read More
Rated by buyers -
A lyrical and beautifully written narrative of the struggle between the local railroad workers' union and their French overseers during a strike against the Dakar-Niger Railroad. Set in 1947 this novel describes a timeless environment which has gone unchanged in post-colonial West Africa. Given the hightened awareness of the plight of Africans yesterday this novel gives a great insight into the history and background of their deprivation and poverty.
Rated by buyers -
Shortly after WW2 the grey 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 obvious soon into the story that the heroes are the women. They are the ones that continue to care for their families throughout the six months while the men wait idly for successful negotiations between the union and the company.
Ousmane makes it clear that the main conflict is not between races or the colonizer and the colonized, but it's a class issue that is complicated by these other matters. The strikers receive support from laborers in France, and they want to work for the railroad (which is French-owned), but for a dignified wage. The author acknowledges that the "machine" changed the way of life in West Africa, with the oldest characters being the only ones who can remember (vaguely) what it was like without the train to transport and distribute staples throughout the region.
This, I think, has become one of my favorites. I recommend it to anyone who appreciates a good book.
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