Summary
“I have never heard of a white man who had learned to speak Bambara, or any other language of this country. But you rootless people think only of learning his, while our language dies.”
Sembène Ousmane’s God’s Bits of Wood narrates events that happened in the West African colony today called Senegal, centred around the strike of the union railway workers that took place between October 1947 and March 1948. The author builds his narrative around men and women who put their lives on the line—and that of their families—to fight for what they believe to be a better life, not only for themselves but also for those who will come after them. Their struggle is not just physical; it is deeply emotional, cultural, and generational.
What makes the novel remarkable is not simply the story it tells, but how Sembène tells it. Rather than follow a single hero, he scatters his narrative across an ensemble of voices—strikers and scabs, wives and outcasts, union leaders and colonial administrators—each revealing a different dimension of what it costs to demand dignity. The result is a novel that reads less like a linear plot and more like a living community under pressure, examined from every angle.
The Machinery of Inequality
The two races face each other with deep hatred and suspicion. One sees the other as savage and undeserving of basic human dignity, while their counterparts view them as pigs and dogs who should return to their own country. Throughout the book, this tension manifests as a constant power struggle, with each side striving relentlessly to have their interests prevail.
Sembène is meticulous in showing how this power operates in practice, not through grand speeches but through mundane, daily humiliations. At the train station, African workers receive lower wages, no family allowances, and no retirement benefits. The toubabs justify this by claiming that the Blacks are like children who do not know what is best for them. In the shops owned by non-Africans, a worker who arrives late has his entire day’s pay docked. African employees are denied even a ten-minute lunch break—something their toubab counterparts enjoy without question. When one worker dares to ask why, he is told bluntly: “If he wanted the ten minutes, he should turn white.”
These are not isolated cruelties. They are systems—designed, maintained, and defended. Characters like Isnard embody this machinery at its most vicious. He regards Africans as the lowest form of humanity and even goes so far as to shoot children hunting lizards to survive. This act ultimately brings tragedy into his own household, a reminder that the violence of colonial contempt does not stay contained.
Tired of these degrading conditions, the workers organise themselves into a union and eventually decide to strike—resolute in their decision to continue until their demands are met. Some understand the consequences of this choice; others do not. But the strike, once begun, becomes the crucible in which every character in the novel is tested.
When the Men Stop Working, the Women Start Fighting
One of Sembène’s most powerful choices is to place women at the centre of the strike’s story. When the working men walk off the job, the burden of survival shifts heavily onto their wives, mothers, and daughters. They must fend for their children—searching in the bushes, at train stops, in markets, and even relying on neighbours—for small amounts of rice, chicken, or millet. But soon, even this becomes impossible. The stores stop giving rice on credit, knowing that families of striking workers cannot afford to repay their debts.
Ramatoulaye’s story captures this harsh reality with devastating specificity. When she can no longer feed her household, she goes to Hadramé’s shop to ask for rice on credit. Despite her persistence, she is turned away. On her way back, she meets her brother, El Hadji Mabigué, who appeases the toubabs and therefore continues to receive supplies. When she asks him for help, he claims he too is starving—but she knows he is lying, having seen his son receive rice from the same shop. Disgusted by his arrogance and betrayal, she curses him. At the fountain, she encounters another blow: there is no water. The supply has been cut off as punishment for the strike—just like other essential resources.
Then comes the moment that transforms her from a woman enduring the strike into a woman defying it. When she returns home, she finds that Vendredi, El Hadji Mabigué’s ram, has destroyed the only rice left for her children. Overcome with anger and desperation, she kills the ram herself. The act shocks the villagers, who gather to witness it. The toubabs, accompanied by their interpreter, come to arrest her—but an unexpected turn of events follows.
If Ramatoulaye represents defiance born of desperation, Penda represents defiance as identity. Labelled a village outcast, she lives alone in her cabin until one night she finds Maïmouna, a blind woman, sheltering there with her starving infant. Though initially angered by her aunt’s decision to place someone in her home without her consent, Penda is confronted with a question she cannot answer—and this moment softens her stance. She allows Maïmouna to stay, with one condition: “Not to be unclean.”
Penda is resilient, bold, and unapologetic. She refuses to be diminished by societal judgement and is fearless in confronting others, including men. But her greatest act comes when she becomes the driving force behind the women’s involvement in the strike. In a groundbreaking moment—the first time a woman speaks publicly—Penda declares that the women will march to Dakar. Along the journey, the women discover their strength, resilience, and collective power. Their courage inspires other villages, where they are welcomed with feasts that restore their energy and strengthen their resolve. However, as they approach their destination, they encounter resistance—and tragedy strikes.
Through Ramatoulaye and Penda, Sembène makes an argument that the novel’s male characters never quite articulate: the strike did not merely challenge colonial authority. It rearranged the social order within the community itself, granting women a public voice they had never before held.
Leadership, Language, and the Question of Identity
Bakayoko stands as the novel’s most uncompromising figure. As the leader of the strike, he embodies the hopes of the workers. Though often away due to his responsibilities, he maintains communication through his adopted daughter. At meetings, he speaks powerfully, often choosing Ouolof, the language of his people, over French. He questions why, if Africans can learn French, the toubabs cannot learn African languages—a challenge that echoes the epigraph and cuts to the heart of colonial arrogance.
He exposes the corruption and injustices of colonial rule and urges the people to remain steadfast. He reminds them of the core demands of their struggle: “We are told that some of our demands will be satisfied, but which ones? We have asked for pensions, for family allowances, for raises in pay, and for the right to have a union which is recognized by the company.”
Though he presents a strong and composed exterior, his emotional connection with Penda reveals a more vulnerable side—one that fears losing hope in the future. Sembène resists the temptation to make Bakayoko a flawless hero. He is effective, yes, but also distant, emotionally guarded, and at times blind to the people closest to him. His leadership inspires the collective, but it comes at a personal cost the novel does not shy away from.
If Bakayoko represents the pull toward African selfhood, N’Deye Touti represents the pull away from it. As an educated young woman, she immerses herself in European literature and films, dismissing African works as unworthy of attention. She feels ashamed of her people and longs for a world beyond her own. Her attempts to “civilise” herself—even through something as simple as making a brassière—highlight her internal conflict. She moves through life as though detached, caught between two worlds. Her feelings for Bakayoko further complicate her character, and when she attempts to express them, his reaction is unexpected and revealing.
Placed alongside each other, Bakayoko and N’Deye Touti reveal Sembène’s deeper concern: that colonialism’s most lasting damage is not economic exploitation but cultural erosion—the slow convincing of a people that their own languages, stories, and ways of being are inferior.
What Endures
Meanwhile, tragedy unfolds quietly in the margins. The old watchman, Sounkaré, dies of starvation while chasing rats for food. His death goes largely unnoticed, a reflection of how little he was valued. When his remains are eventually discovered months later, he is given only a brief and indifferent send-off. Sembène does not dramatise his death. He simply lets it sit alongside the grander acts of resistance, a reminder that not every sacrifice is recognised, and not every victim becomes a symbol.
God’s Bits of Wood carries deep pain, resilience, and even moments of humour. The pain is evident in the starvation, suffering, and loss endured by the people. Yet resilience shines through in their unity—when one group stops singing, another continues, until the song becomes collective, its beginning and end indistinguishable. It becomes a symbol of shared struggle and endurance.
The central lesson of the book is clear: choice is costly, no matter what it is. The Senegalese men and women chose rebellion against toubab superiority, and they paid the price. Yet their sacrifice contributed to their country’s independence, and their spirit of resistance spread across the African continent. Through literature, their legacy endures, marking a significant step towards decolonisation.
A Note on Craft
God’s Bits of Wood is well written and engaging. Sembène balances heavy themes with moments of humour through characters like Awa, and his decision to tell the story through an ensemble rather than a single protagonist gives the novel a panoramic quality that few books about resistance achieve. The reader does not simply follow a hero; they inhabit a community. It is this quality—the sense that every character, from the union leader to the starving watchman, carries a piece of the larger truth—that makes the novel feel less like a historical account and more like a living document.
While the toubabs clearly understand how to exploit Africans—keeping them outside their well-maintained compounds, which are ironically sustained by underpaid Black labour—they fail to grasp a fundamental truth that Sembène articulates through every page: human endurance has limits. There comes a point where oppression no longer instils fear but instead fuels resistance.
Recommendation
God’s Bits of Wood is definitely a worthwhile read for anyone interested in a powerful and meaningful story—especially those who seek to learn valuable lessons from African authors and historical struggles. More than that, it is a novel that rewards rereading. The characters who seem minor on first encounter—Sounkaré, Maïmouna, even the ram Vendredi—reveal themselves as essential to Sembène’s larger argument: that a struggle for dignity belongs to everyone, and its costs are borne unevenly but collectively.
