God's bits of wood float to London

My last post argued that class formation may cut across ethnic lines. Familiarity with the ideas of class certainly cut across borders in the novel God's Bits of Wood, by Senegalese author Ousmane Sembene. It describes a strike in 1940s West Africa, through the characters involved in the long struggle.

I grew up in class-conscious 1970s and 1980s Britain, with one of nation's major strikes happening on the street outside my house. The characters in the novel, particularly the left-wing urbanites, sounded like people not from the decades ago in a different continent, but my friends and acquaintances. Sembene wrote not just about his own region - although he would be celebrated as one of its greatest novelists - but for all people who had experienced social class one way or another.