God's Bits of Wood

God's Bits of Wood is a 1960 novel by the Senegalese author Ousmane Sembène that concerns a railroad strike in colonial Senegal of the 1940s. It was written in French under the title Les bouts de bois de Dieu. The book deals with several ways that the Senegalese and Malians responded to colonialism. There are elements that tend toward accommodation, collaboration, or even idealization of the French colonials. At the same time the story details the strikers who work against the mistreatment of the Senegalese people.^[1] The novel was translated into English in 1962 and published by William Heinemann.

Plot summary

The action takes place in several locations—primarily in Bamako, Thiès, and Dakar. The map at the beginning shows the locations and suggests that the story is about a whole country and all of its people. There is a large cast of characters associated with each place. Some are featured players—Fa Keita, Tiemoko, Maimouna, Ramatoulaye, Penda, Deune, N'Deye, Dejean, and Bakayoko. Others part of the populace. The fundamental conflict is captured in two people, Dejean (the French manager and colonialist) and Bakayoko (the soul and spirit of the strike). In another sense, however, the main characters of the novel are the people as a collective, the places they inhabit, and the railroad.

The evolution of the strike causes an evolution in the self-perceptions of the Africans themselves, one that is most noticeable in the women of Bamako, Thiès, and Dakar. These women go from seemingly standing behind the men in their lives, to walking alongside them and eventually marching ahead of them. When the men are able to work the jobs that the train factory provides them, the women are responsible for running the markets, preparing the food, and rearing the children. But the onset of the strike gives the role of bread-winner—or perhaps more precisely bread scavenger—to the women. Women go from supporting the strike to participating in the strike. Eventually it is the women that march on foot, over four days from Thiès to Dakar. Many of the men originally oppose this women's march, but it is precisely this show of determination from those (the wives marching) that the French had dismissed as "concubines" that makes clear the strikers' relentlessness. The women's march causes the French to understand the nature of the willpower that they are facing, and shortly after the French agree to the demands of the strikers.

The book also highlights the oppression faced by women in the precolonial era. They were deprived of their ability to speak on matters including the society as a whole. Ousmane, however, tries to raise women to a higher spectrum by considering them as equally important.

Historical significance

The book came out in 1960, the year that Senegal achieved independence. The theme of unity is significant for the building of the newly independent nation.

References

1. ^ God's Bits of Wood - Les bouts de bois de Dieu