The Money-Order

Ousmane Sembène · 1966 CE · Short Story · West African · Contemporary

A money order arrives in Dakar from a nephew sweeping streets in Paris, and word of it travels the neighbourhood faster than the cash can be collected. To cash it Ibrahima Dieng needs an identity card, for which he needs a birth certificate, for which he needs papers he has never owned. Sembene's funniest picture of a bureaucracy inherited whole from the colonial state.

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Lineage

• ↓ Mandabi
  Ousmane Sembène · 1968 CE · Film — adapts this

Attributes

Closest analogues

• Mandabi
  Ousmane Sembène · 1968 CE · Film

  85% · 19 shared
  SatirePoliticalClass & InequalityIndividual vs SocietyWealth & GreedContemporaryEverymanInnocentTricksterEpisodicThe QuestIronic ReversalThe LetterThe Cityvs Societyvs PersonSatiricalRealistWest African
• A Man of the People
  Chinua Achebe · 1966 CE · Novel

  63% · 15 shared
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• The Atom Station
  Halldór Laxness · 1948 CE · Novel

  63% · 15 shared
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• The Tale of Master Heo
  Bak Jiwon · 1780 CE · Short Story

  62% · 14 shared
  Short StorySatirePoliticalClass & InequalityIndividual vs SocietyWealth & GreedEverymanTricksterEpisodicIronic Reversalvs Societyvs PersonSatiricalIronic
• The Government Inspector
  Nikolai Gogol · 1836 CE · Play

  59% · 13 shared
  SatirePoliticalClass & InequalityWealth & GreedEverymanTricksterIronic ReversalThe LetterThe Feastvs Societyvs PersonSatiricalIronic
• Xala
  Ousmane Sembène · 1973 CE · Novel

  58% · 14 shared
  SatirePoliticalClass & InequalityWealth & GreedContemporaryTricksterIronic ReversalThe CityThe Feastvs SocietySatiricalIronicRealistWest African