The Story Archive

God's Bits of Wood

Ousmane Sembène · 1960 CE · Novel · West African · Contemporary

In October 1947 the workers on the Dakar-Niger line stop the trains, and three towns settle in for a strike the French company expects hunger to break inside a month. Water is cut off, savings go, and the women of Thies, who were meant to be the pressure that ended it, set out on foot for Dakar. Sembene's account of a strike he lived alongside, and the founding novel of French West African fiction.

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Attributes

Genre
PoliticalHistorical
Theme
Class & InequalityColonialismSuffering & EnduranceFellowship
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
EverymanRebel / OutlawThe Great MotherMentor
Plot structure
PolyphonicChronicleEpisodic
Symbol / motif
The TrainThe MachineThe City
Conflict
vs Societyvs Nature
Mode / tone
RealistEpic
Culture / tradition
West African

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