As I started reading God's Bits of Wood by Ousmane Sembene, the
first thing I did was to try and locate the story in a specific time period and
geographic place and this is what I concluded:
This book was first published in 1960 but it actually takes place in the
1940s in Senegal. I found it interesting that the book is about the strike of
the 1940s that occurred because the workers, especially the railroad workers,
weren't happy and it was published in 1960, on the same year Senegal got its
independence from France. This book lets us appreciate how the independence
started. First the workers formed unions to complain about the status quo of
Senegal, the Senegalese weren’t happy with the French dominance. Then, not only
the workers but all types of people joined in the movement and little by little
they started to get more organized. I think that the main purpose of the book
is to contrast how a simple workers’ strike lead to the independence of
Senegal.
