God’s Bits of Wood

The chronically-inebriated railway manger, Leblanc, advises his colleagues that he has anonymously donated “20 thousand francs to help out with their strike” (170) on two occasions. Why might he have done so?

When Fa Keita is incarcerated under barbaric prison conditions, he suffers greatly due to his inability to pray properly. He attempts to do so when the prisoners are lined up in the yard. The sadistic Commandant hurls the old man into a barbed wire fence as punishment. What allusional imagery might the author be using in this scene?

As Bakayoko and the other marchers arrive in Dakar, an elderly woman, Grandmother Fatou Wade, waves her valuable waistcloth at the women and “spread it across the street in front of Mariame Sonko, who paused in astonishment” (213). What ancient ceremony was Fatou Wade imitating by doing this?