Writing about the prevailing pains, trauma and frustration of Celestine Vigale.Kegiri, the 34-year-old skilled carpenter and wood specialist reminds me of two seminal books I read with passion as a secondary school student: God’s Bits of Wood (1960) and A walk in the Night and other stories (1962). The former was written by Sembene Ousmane (January 1, 1923 – June 9, 2007), my departed friend, a celebrated Senegalese writer, Marxist and film director. The book is a fictional work set in colonial Senegal, the French speaking West African country. The theme of workers strike permeates the book. Workers strikes’ in the book is triggered by the poor working conditions of the railway workers. The latter was authored by Alex La Guma (1925 - 1985), the famous South African journalist, author and anti-apartheid activist. In the above novella, he fictionalized the suffering of workers in Apartheid South Africa. Ousmane and La Guma are deeply concerned about the predicament of the working peoples be they in Senegal, Mali or South Africa. Whether workers at the railway stations, mining pits or cement factories, working class peoples always bear the blow of injustice, greed and manipulation by those who control the means of production.
