Quotes from book
God's Bits of Wood
Ousmane Sembène
Original title
Les bouts de bois de Dieu
(French, 1960)
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. The novel was translated into English in 1962 and published by William Heinemann as God's Bits of Wood as part of their influential African Writers Series.
