Ousmane SembèneReseñas

The plot—a lengthy strike by railroad workers on the Dakar-Niger railway in the late 1940s against French colonial power—initially struck me as a story I couldn’t work up much interest in. I am extremely pleased to say that I was totally wrong. This may be the best of what I have read of this prolific author, a recounting of personalities, the day-to-day costs of a strike both psychologically and physically. Time and again, Ousmane brilliantly describes the struggle of the strikers’ families to eat, the political discussions of the strike leaders…even the behind-the-scenes plotting of the French. It is not a short work and yet I found myself sorry to turn the last page, wanting to know more about the stories of the people and of their lives. Ousmane’s writing is strong and his characterizations—particularly of the many women who play significant roles in the story—are excellent.

In this semi-autobiographical film, black soldiers help to defend France, but are detained in prison camp before being repatriated home. (fonte: Imdb)

The “grand old man” of Senegalese film and, to a large extent, literature as well. He’s nothing if not prolific and I think his work takes some sorting through since, as with many (most?) prolific authors, not everything is worth a reader’s time. A number of the stories here relate to the expatriate experience in France, including a particularly moving one about a young woman who accompanies a family as their maid/cook and general servant. Indeed, a number of the stories involve his championing of women’s rights. My greatest disappointment, I think, is with the variable quality of the stories. Any collection will inevitably have stronger stories and weaker ones. What distressed me here was the significant difference between stronger and weaker with some of the weaker ones being particularly pointless. In fact, I am almost inclined to say that some of them were just this side of silly.* All in all, I continue to enjoy his work but I don’t think I would particularly recommend this collection as a whole—just a small handful of stories from it (including “Her Three Days” and “The Promised Land.”)½

Allowing himself to be coerced into taking a third wife who is the age of his children, El Hadji cannot consummate the marriage. He has come down with impotence and the book is the story of his resort to everything from traditional beliefs to Western psychiatry to overcome the problem. As a metaphor for Senegal soon after the country won its independence in 1960 (he published Xala in 1973), the story is at times hilarious, at other times heart-breaking. Sembène exposes the veneer of Western culture and beliefs among the elite in a work that can be read for both the enjoyment of the plot itself as well as for its deeper understanding of the difficulties besetting the nation. The end, an extraordinary, hallucinogenic scene, reminded me of nothing so much as a tableau by Fellini or Almodovar or Buñuel (forgive me, these directors are not my favorites and I rely more on a general sense of their work than particular films). But for the ending, which I am still struggling to integrate into what preceded it, I think this is one of his better works.

God's Bits of Wood paints a complex picture of a society in upheaval. The French colonists in West Africa try to hang on to their power and crush the railroad strike of 1948. The young men and women of Senegal rebel against both the French and the traditional ways of their elders.

My one complaint is that the French seem to be nothing more than caricatures, and Isnard's wife's Lady Macbeth moment at the end of the novel is needlessly melodramatic.

3,5

Looks at how the new African middle class have taken over from the colonialists as the exploiters of the people.

… Parfois, quelqu’un te demande : « Où as-tu appris le français ? Comment fais-tu pour le parler ? » Tout de suite, il pense que c’est la civilisation des Blancs qui a fait de toi une personne capable de réagir, de voir et même de sentir, alors ils te considèrent comme leur œuvre. D’autres te demandent : « Es-tu habitué à notre cuisine ? Notre façon de s’habiller ne te gêne pas quand tu marches ? » Lorsqu’il fait chaud, ils disent : « Ne te plains pas, tu es d’un pays chaud ; ta peau te rend insensible à la chaleur… Comment vit-on chez toi ? » Il y en a aussi qui se marrent à la vue d’un nègre : quand un Noir leur parle, ils battent des cils comme si les mots leur tombaient du firmament. Dans les salles de spectacle, il y en a qui changent de place, car la présence d’un sac de charbon les compromet et, en partant, leur regard te fait comprendre ce qu’ils n’osent pas exprimer ; c’est pareil dans le bus ou le métro…
(p. 83, Partie 2, Chapitre 1).
Je ne veux pas vous faire concurrence, je veux simplement lutter. Si je perds d’avance, cela ne fait rien ; ceux qui viendront après moi vous tiendront tête jusqu’à ce que vous soyez assis à la même table.
(p. 140, Partie 3, Chapitre 2).

Je découvre avec ce livre, que les éditions Presse de la Cité ont eu la bonne idée de rééditer, Ousmane Sembène, qui fut acteur majeur de la scène culturelle sénégalaise de l’époque de la décolonisation et des indépendances. Ce livre n’est pas son plus célèbre, mais c’est le deuxième qu’il écrit et le premier qui se passe au Sénégal. Il est publié en 1957, 3 ans avant l’indépendance du Sénégal et alors qu’Ousmane Sembène est encore docker sur le port de Marseille. Il y a donc beaucoup d’Ousmane Sembène dans le héros de ce livre, Oumar Faye, qui revient dans son village de Casamance après 8 ans passés en France, dont 4 à faire la guerre, 8 années pendant lesquelles il a eu l’occasion de se frotter à des idées nouvelles, 8 années pendant lesquelles il a eu accès à l’éducation, dispensée notamment par les syndicats (et Ousmane Sembène a lui aussi profité des bibliothèques et des cours gratuits du Parti Communiste et de la CGT).
Oumar Faye arrive donc en Casamance, fort de ses idées nouvelles et prêt à vivre dans son village, mélangeant respect de la tradition et idées nouvelles. Petit détail, il débarque avec sa femme blanche, Isabelle. Le livre, somme toute assez court, suit les premiers mois de l’installation d’Oumar Faye et de sa femme : les réticences de sa famille (un père iman et une mère un peu sorcière, c’est compliqué quand on amène des idées neuves et une femme blanche…), la défiance des villageois face à un dynamisme entrepreneurial auquel ils ne sont pas habitués. Mais Ousmane Sembène croit en son peuple (le titre du livre est assez explicite sur ce point !) et Oumar Faye arrive à emmener dans son sillage les jeunes de sa génération, et même peu à peu les générations plus âgées. Mais c’est sans compter sur l’administration coloniale qui voit d’un mauvais œil se lever la figure de cet homme charismatique et prêt à tout changer.

Il me semble que le livre a quelques faiblesses, avec notamment une galerie de personnages secondaires très secondaires et peu caractérisés, ce qui rend parfois difficile le fait de les suivre au fil de l’histoire. Mais l’intérêt du livre n’étant pas là, c’est une faiblesse que l’on pardonne aisément, d’autant qu’il s’agit d’une œuvre de jeunesse, il faut bien que plume se fasse.
Mais par-delà ces faiblesses, c’est une lecture très intéressante, qui met en scène l’évolution de la société et les rapports entre les générations, les espoirs de certains et le fatalisme des autres, les tiraillements qu’il peut y avoir au sein des individus comme des collectivités dans un moment qui précède des grands bouleversements. Ce livre ayant été écrit avant l’indépendance, ce n’est pas une relecture de ce moment en sachant ce qui allait se passer après et comment tout cela finirait, non, Ousmane Sembène est dans le même état d’expectative que son personnage, il aspire au changement, il rejette activement la colonisation, mais il ne sait pas où cela va mener, ni si sa cause vaincra, ni quelle forme cette victoire pourrait prendre. Et l’on sent bien cela dans l’écriture de ce roman, tous les possibles sont encore là, et si l’on espère, on ne peut pas savoir. Cela explique probablement la fin qu’Ousmane Sembène a choisi pour son roman, probablement le seul destin possible pour un homme qui était probablement en avance d’une décennie, mais qui représente ceux qui ont tracé le début du chemin qu’Ousmane Sembène et d’autres ont suivi après eux pour sortir de la colonisation et enfin écrire leur propre histoire sur leur propre sol.

Merci aux Presses de la Cité de m’avoir permis de découvrir ce livre, via netgalley.

L'odissea dei soldati senegalesi, che dopo aver dato il loro contributo di sangue combattendo per i francesi durante la seconda guerra mondiale, vengono smobilitati senza neanche un "grazie" quando il conflitto è quasi finito. Anzi, prima di essere inviati alle loro tribù, vengono stipati in un campo militare che assomiglia molto a un lager. Uno stupido incidente provocherà una feroce repressione da parte delle autorità francesi. Giustamente premiato al Festival di Venezia 1988. (fonte: Mymovies)

A Senegalese platoon of soldiers from the French Free Army are returned from combat in France and held for a temporary time in a military encampment with barbed wire fences and guard towers in the desert. Among their numbers are Sergeant Diatta, the charismatic leader of the troop who was educated in Paris and has a French wife and child, and Pays, a Senegalese soldier left in a state of shock from the war and concentration camps and who can only speak in guttural screams and grunts. All is well until the soldiers start to complain about the food offered in the camp, to which the French commander says he will do nothing about, as meat is reserved for white officers. To kill time, Sergeant Diatta goes into town to find a brothel, and is thrown out of one because he is African; he is subsequently found by American troops, who beat and capture him. As revenge, the Senegalese troops capture a white American soldier and an exchange is made between the two prisoners, and the Americans threaten to level the camp and kill everyone. As the Senegalese troops are about to be transferred out of the camp, they learn they will only be given half the pay for their service as the French troops are unfairly converting French francs to Senegalese francs at half the rate to save money. The Senegalese troops capture the camp and take a French general hostage, beginning a mutiny. The mutiny ends when the officer gives them his word that they will be given their proper pay. That night, they dance and celebrate. At about 3 am, Pays is in a watch tower and sees tanks approaching the camp, and wakes up the other soldiers, but is unable to tell them what is happening; they think he is saying that Nazis are invading the camp, and dismiss him as being crazy. An hour or so later, the French tanks open fire on the camp, killing Diatta, Pays and the rest of the Senegalese platoon. (fonte: Wikipedia)

Two novellas, 20 Mar. 2016

This review is from: The Money-Order with White Genesis [AWS 92] (Paperback)
Two novellas set in the author's native Senegal.
White Genesis is a drama of murder, incest and madness involving the leading family of a village. With a backdrop of the locals voicing their opinions, it almost felt like a Greek tragedy.
In The Money Order, a poor man receives a money order from a nephew in France. But cashing it requires an identity card, which in turn requires photos, a birth certificate and much 'greasing of palms'. And while all this is going on, the recipient's good news has leaked out and he's approached from all sides for a loan...
Quite well-written but didn't hugely grab me.

Gripping recounting of the pivotal 1947-48 strike on the Dakar-Niger railway that was a turning point in West African independence. The black African railway men strike to demand basic equality with white European workers, simple things such as pensions, back pay and family allowances that have always been granted to Europeans. The strike is suppressed with a callousness and brutality that will unsurprising to anyone with a passing familiarity of the international labor movement. Not content with seeing how long the strikers can last without pay, the colonial establishment even cuts off electricity and in a particularly cruel twist, water to the workers and their families.

As one of the wives notes, “Real misfortune is not just a matter of being hungry and thirsty; it is a matter of knowing that there are people who want you to be hungry and thirsty – and that is the way it is with us.” One of the ways that I think this story compares favorably to roughly contemporaneous works by Steinbeck or Orwell is the highlighting of the pivotal role that the women played in the struggle. They stepped forward in a way that was revolutionary in a traditional Muslim society and I can’t help but wonder if they were able to hold on to their gains in the aftermath or suffered a backsliding in rights after the dust settled.

Sembène’s large cast of characters are all finely drawn individuals without a single stock character to be found. Even the French colonial officials are allowed their individual quirks and motivations, indeed the only completely unsympathetic person in the whole book was a sadistic prison commandant. And even the commandant may have only been drawn that way in order to allow his victims a moral choice of how far they would let hate and the yearning for vengeance rule them after the resolution of the strike. You have to love a story where a traditional elderly devout Muslim man and an independent young woman of “easy virtue” can be equally inspirational.

La lucha de los trabajadores del ferrocarril por mejorar sus condiciones de vida. Las mujeres de los trabajadores se unen en una marcha hasta la capital del país.

[God’s Bits of Wood] by Sengalese writer [[Sembene Ousmane] was first published in 1960. It is about the Dakar-Niger railway strike on 1947-48. The book has a political message, but is more than that.

I read this book for the Francophone theme in the Reading Globally group. It was written in French, but feels less “French” and more African compared to some of the other books I have read from this challenge. Ousmane’s style reminds me of Achebe, with it’s focus on community norms and the community story, and in the concrete story-telling mode. For example:

“It was an afternoon in med-October, at the end of the season of rains, and as was the custom at this time of day the women of the Bakayoko house were gathered in the courtyard. Only the women. As they went about their household tasks they chattered constantly, each of them completely indifferent to what the others were saying. Seated a little apart, with her back against the hard, clay wall, was old Niakoro. “

I enjoyed reading this book. The style is accessible and I grew to really care about the characters and the outcome of the strike. This book enhanced my respect for early labor leaders: the suffering for the strikers and their families was intense, but they were able to persevere.

The role of women in a traditional Moslem society is one of the major themes of this book. Women and men live in parallel worlds, which is one of the reasons, I think, that polygamy can work. As the story unfolds, we see the women taking more power and becoming more active in the strike.

In this bleak satire of post-colonial Senegal, the protagonist, El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye, a leading "businessman" (the quotes are Ousmane's) discovers that he is impotent, or xala, on the night of his wedding to his third wife, the beautiful and young N'Gone. Earlier that day, the local Chamber of Commerce and Industry had installed its very first African president, of which all its members, including El Hadji (a title which signifies he has made a pilgrimage to Mecca), are very proud. El Hadji is a sort of middleman, who buys goods in bulk and then resells them to other businesses, and he has become very rich over the years; he also spends liberally, on cars, chauffeurs, villas for each of his wives, and money for their children.

Needless to say, wives number one and two are not very happy about wife number three (although for different reasons), and so of course they are initially suspected putting on curse on El Hadji to cause his xala. He is distraught about it, naturally, and runs around to various Muslim and African wise men and healers, to no avail. In the meantime, his wives are unhappy, the whole town knows about his problem, and his business, through lack of attention and extravagant spending, is being run into the ground. Eventually a special healer resolves his problem but warns El Hadji that what he has taken away he can give back. The ending seems a little tacked on, but makes the political point of the novel.

I have previously read God's Bits of Wood by Ousmane, which depicted a railway strike in colonial Senegal and the way it empowered the women of the community. In this book, he illustrates the world of post-colonial Senegal, the way some people tried to emulate the French colonists, the corruption, the difficulties of polygamy, the way Islam and traditional religions interact, the interest of some in the younger generation of speaking in Wolof and not in French, and more, while using El Hadji's impotence to stand for the impotence of the Africans in the colonial and post-colonial world and, perhaps, the impotence of men confronted by stronger women. As in the earlier book, Ousmane creates interesting characters.

I was not as impressed by this novella as I was by God's Bits of Wood, but it is a dark take on post-colonial Africa.

I was given this book a long time ago, but since it is not really my kind of nove, I did not read it so far. And do not intend to: I've read the first 40 something pages and I just can't get through.

An historical novel about the railway workers' strike on the Niger-Dakar Railroad, of the struggles between the railroad workers against their French colonial employers. Showcasing the poverty and oppression of the African workers and their families, the workers realize that they need to unite if they are to successful gain economic and social equality for themselves. This is a really powerful and lyrical work that is both disturbing as it is inspirational.½

This book grew on me as I read it: at first it seemed like a relatively straightforward account, with political overtones, of a strike on the Dakar-Niger railway in 1947-1948, in which the African workers demanded higher wages, pensions, and more from the colonial French managers, but gradually I was drawn in by the perceptive portraits of a whole variety of characters and the more subtle interactions among them and by the portrait of changes in the society as the impact of western "civilization" made itself felt on traditional ways of life. As other reviewers have noted, one of the most interesting aspects of the book is the way the women take on new power as the story develops. Ousmane portrays not only the suffering caused by the strike, but also the suffering that made the strike necessary, and the strengths and weaknesses of the men and women who must deal with the consequences of the strike. He also illustrates the complex relationship between the colonizers and the colonized, some of whom take pride in having learned French, and how to read and write, while resenting the fact that they must speak French to the French, who have never taken the time to learn the African languages spoken by the people they control. Although the French characters are not as fully developed as the African ones, they too differ from each other and narrowly escape being stereotypes.

Ousmane immigrated to France where he became a union organizer and a member of the Communist party. At times in this book the political message borders on the obvious, but for the most part this is a story of people struggling to put food and water on the table and live in dignity.

This novel is about the six month long strike by the workers on the Dakar-Niger railway in 1947-48. The narrative splits among three locations, Dakar, Thies, and Bamako, and is told from the viewpoint of multiple characters. We come to love these people and empathize with their suffering.

What is interesting about the novel is how the role of women in society evolved over the time period of the strike. Initially, the women have no role to play; as the food and money runs out, however, it is left to the ingenuity and skills of the women to provide for their men and their families. Ultimately, it is the march of the women from Thies to Dakar that causes the railroad company to concede to the demands of the strikers.

While the book obviously makes a political statement, it does not rely on diatribe or polemic. It tells the story of a variety of individuals, their suffering and their courage. It makes for compelling reading. Highly recommended.

God's Bits of Wood has multiple layers. At face value it is a story of a Western African 1947-8 railroad strike. The story focuses on several key players but the most important individuals are Ibrahima Bakayoko, a locomotive engineer who becomes the union leader during the strike, and on the other side of the conflict, Dejean, the French colonial manager. Because the story takes place in several different areas (Bamako, Thies and Dakar) the overall impact of the strike is generalized to a population. The story reaches past an African railroad strike in order to analyze clashes that go beyond worker/employer relations. The social economic and political contexts are analyzed and illustrated. It is more than a description of the initiatives of the railroad workers versus the initiatives of the colonial administration. Feminists have a field day with re-imagining gender relations as the women of West Africa transform themselves into powerful members of society - the social function to the story as it pertains to Sengal and Africa as a whole.

God's bits of wood (Jumalan puupalikat in Finnish) is set in 1948, in French Western Africa, now Mali and Senegal. It tells a realistic story of the strike of Dakar-Niger railroad workers. They are poor in the beginning, and their powerty turns into misery during the six month strike. But they don't bend (or at least they don't break).

The story is set in three places, Bamako, Thies and Dakar, and it is told from the points of views of several characters. Their different situations and different attitudes to the strike. While most are wholeheartedly for the fight and the strike, some have their doubts and moments of weakness. Some of the don't even think the fight is right. They all are humans. This is convincingly conveyed. Mostly so: Bakayoko, the strongest of the strike leaders, becomes nearly a mythical hero; and the white characters are just bad or stupid, or both.

The role of the women is interesting. While the(ir) men play with big things and fight the big powers, the women still have to provide them and their children - food, support and an orderly home to come to. The harder this comes the stronger they become. They take their place and they make their voice to be heard: both the men in strike and the people with power are made to listen, loud and clear. Their long walk from Thies to Dakar to confront the company leaders finally becomes the act that turns the tide. Ather the march other worker's unions join the strike and finally ends it in their favor.

Everything doesn't turn good overnight, but in the end it is obvious that the first steps to the right direction have been taken.½

A obra do autor senegalés Ousmane Sembène (1923-2007) transcende o meramente literario xa que ademais de autor de obras como O estibador negro, coa que comeza a súa carreira literaria, publicou outras como Le docker noir en 1956, Oh pays, mon beau peuple ou Les bouts de bois de Dieu…. Paralelamente, Sembène é considerado o patriarca do cinema africano, dirixindo no 1966 o filme A negra de…, a primeira longametraxe africana á que seguen outros filmes e curtametraxes.
A súa preferencia polo cinema fronte á literatura vén dada pola reflexión, logo de vivir en Europa, de que os libros non chegaban á poboación africana debido ao alto grao de analfabetismo e polo seu prezo inalcanzábel para o minguado poder adquisitivo dos cidadáns africanos. Daí que considere que o mecanismo máis eficaz para transmitir a súa mensaxe sexa o cinema, arte máis popular e directa coa que , ademais, podía falarlle ao pobo na súa propia lingua.
Sembène entendeu que o seu traballo de escritor e cineasta debía consistir nunha especie de misión pedagóxica destinada a expor diante dos seus compatriotas as inxustizas sufridas ao longo dos séculos polos pobos de África.
A nosa proposta de leitura é unha narración curta titulada O xiro postal (1966), traducida ao galego por Isabel García Fernández para a editorial Rinoceronte.
Nesta obra cóntasenos como a chegada dun xiro postal, procedente de Francia, altera a rutina dun bairro pobre de Dakar dos anos 60. Toda a veciñanza espera atopar nestes cartos unha saída á súa vida miserenta, chea de débedas e privacións. A través das dificultades de Dieng, o protagonista, para cobrar o xiro postal, o autor oferécenos un retrato cruel do Senegal desa época, no que aínda se manteñen as estruturas sociais e económicas da época colonial á vez que denuncia a hipocrisía, a corrupción, o analfabetismo e o parasitismo dunha sociedade que necesariamente ten de cambiar e reaccionar fronte a tantas adversidades.
Sara Sánchez

Ibland, när det gäller musik, hör man kommentarer som att "det är bara budskap, inget sväng" el dyl. Det skulle jag vilja applicera på denna roman. Författaren vill så gärna få fram sina åsikter, hans stora ambition är att förklara för sina läsare... så att det blir egentligen ingenting annat än det. Ingen dramaturgi, inget drag i berättandet.
Men.. man får en hum om hur det kan ha varit i det koloniala Senegal strax efter första världskriget.. och (ras)motsättningarna där.

Men det kunde varit i roligare förpackning.

In this Senegalese novel set in Dakkar, xala is a curse of impotence. This story, an increasingly taut psychodrama about an aging patron and his wives, follows a normative African storyline with typical characters. There is the overbearing mother-in-law type, the mature and successful merchant and his coterie of business colleagues, his handout-seeking modern children, an iconic youngster, the wronged heroine, all around a village and city juxtaposition with wealth creation and loss and the mandatory wedding. Slow to start, the book is not flowery or humorous, and this book is dark in mood if not in plot compared with similar books of its type from other African countries. Most pretense of kindness, forgiveness, and redemption are gone away, and no one in the story comes out ahead.½

Sembene's most well-known work, God's Bits of Wood is set during the 1947-8 strike by the Dakar-Niger Railway workers who were demanding better pay, family allowances and pensions. We follow the men, women and children affected by the strike as the authorities' cut off their food and water supplies. Ultimately the strikers were successful in forcing the railway company to negotiate.

Sembene was himself a union organiser and member of the Communist Party in France. Because of this I expected a lot of politicised speeches from the book's characters. However, he tackles his subject in a much more subtle manner - the injustices of the colonial system are effectively conveyed without heavy-handed diatribes.

What struck me most was how the role of women in society changed during the strike because of the extreme situation they were in. At the beginning a girl is chastised by the women for going to the meetings where men were discussing the proposed strike, an unseemly place for a woman to be. By the end of the book, women were leading protests and riots and seem to have been much more active than men in organising militant action. I think this is because the privations of this time affected women much more - despite the food shortages they were still expected to provide for their families, and they were constantly confronted with the sight of their starving children or by not being able to produce enough milk for their babies.

The book also illustrates the ambivalence experienced by those who are colonised. The colonial power is hated, yet its language and customs are appropriated often by young people for whom they represent sophistication and a way to get ahead. A young woman in the book is proud of her ability to speak French but it ultimately leads to her humiliation as she can understand the lewd comments made about her by French officials.½