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Stone Breakers
THE STONE-BREAKERS, set in an imagined contemporary African country is a gripping novel told from a unique second person point-of-view of the uprising of a group of women stone crushers at a gravel pit, who rise up against their corporate bosses to demand higher wages for their labor--a gruelling process of break rocks down to gravel-size bits to be used as road surfacing for the expansion of the country's airport.
What begins as a village protest escalates to a state-wide rebellion that confronts the corrupt leadership and challenges the status quo set by the government and the mining corporations. First published in 2010, this classic novel of labor resistance, is published for the first time in the English language, will draw comparisons to the works of Chinua Achebe, Ben Okri and Imbolo Mbue.
What begins as a village protest escalates to a state-wide rebellion that confronts the corrupt leadership and challenges the status quo set by the government and the mining corporations. First published in 2010, this classic novel of labor resistance, is published for the first time in the English language, will draw comparisons to the works of Chinua Achebe, Ben Okri and Imbolo Mbue.
- GenresAfrica
385 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 30, 2026
About the author
Emmanuel Dongala
14 books62 followersEmmanuel Dongala born July 14, 1941 is a Congolese Chemist ,short story writer, novelist and playwright, schooled in Brazzaville , and studied in the United States where he earned a BA in Chemistry from Oberlin College and an MA from Rutgers University . He then left the United States for France , where he was awarded a PhD in Organic Chemistry. Upon his return to the Congo he worked as a teacher and dean until 1998, when he was forced to leave because of the civil war. Helped by his friend, the writer Philip Roth, Dongala now lives in the United States , where he teaches at Bard College and holds the Richard B. Fisher Chair in Natural Sciences.
Dongala, who writes in French and whose books have been translated into a dozen languages, has published four novels, a collection of short stories and a play. His collection of short stories, Jazz et Vin de Palme ( Jazz and Palm Wine) , published while the Congo was a Marxist-Leninist state, was banned because it satirised those in power. The ban was only lifted in 1990 after the collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent collapse of the Congolese one-party state.
Dongala is the founder and former president of the National Association of Congolese Writers and the Congolese chapter of PEN. He also founded and led the theatre company, Le Théâtre de l'Eclair. His essays and articles have appeared in numerous major newspapers and magazines, including Le Monde, The New York Times, and Transition.
Dongala's novel Le Feu des Origines ( The Fires of Origins) , received the Grand Prix d'Afrique Noire and the Grand Prix de la Fondation de France. La Marseillaise described it as "a stunning novel…the art of Emmanuel Dongala is extreme…this novel, which plunges into the heart of reality, becomes legend." His novel, Johnny Mad Dog, was selected by the Los Angeles Times as one of its books of the year - a film adaptation was released in 2008. Questioned on his reasons for writing, Dongala answers “Why do people make love?”
A great African novel: inspired yet sober, wide-ranging yet written concisely, purely, without a superfluous word. . .a human history of an entire continent." - La Suisse on The Fire of Origins
In 1999 Emmanuel Dongala was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and in 2003, he was the winner of the prestigious Fonlon-Nichols Prize 2003 for literary excellence. His works have been translated into a dozen different languages.
Dongala, who writes in French and whose books have been translated into a dozen languages, has published four novels, a collection of short stories and a play. His collection of short stories, Jazz et Vin de Palme ( Jazz and Palm Wine) , published while the Congo was a Marxist-Leninist state, was banned because it satirised those in power. The ban was only lifted in 1990 after the collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent collapse of the Congolese one-party state.
Dongala is the founder and former president of the National Association of Congolese Writers and the Congolese chapter of PEN. He also founded and led the theatre company, Le Théâtre de l'Eclair. His essays and articles have appeared in numerous major newspapers and magazines, including Le Monde, The New York Times, and Transition.
Dongala's novel Le Feu des Origines ( The Fires of Origins) , received the Grand Prix d'Afrique Noire and the Grand Prix de la Fondation de France. La Marseillaise described it as "a stunning novel…the art of Emmanuel Dongala is extreme…this novel, which plunges into the heart of reality, becomes legend." His novel, Johnny Mad Dog, was selected by the Los Angeles Times as one of its books of the year - a film adaptation was released in 2008. Questioned on his reasons for writing, Dongala answers “Why do people make love?”
A great African novel: inspired yet sober, wide-ranging yet written concisely, purely, without a superfluous word. . .a human history of an entire continent." - La Suisse on The Fire of Origins
In 1999 Emmanuel Dongala was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and in 2003, he was the winner of the prestigious Fonlon-Nichols Prize 2003 for literary excellence. His works have been translated into a dozen different languages.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 5, 2023
https://shonareads.wordpress.com/2023...
Driving through a suburb on the outskirts of Harare recently, an area with lots of new houses going up, I saw a woman of indeterminate age sitting in front of her tiny house, breaking rocks. It was just a glimpse, and I wished afterwards that I had stopped to speak to her, to hear a little of her story; but I was in a hurry, and the moment was lost. It’s not that I ever forget that I’m a woman, but it’s easy to begin to take one’s own experiences and stories for the only truth, to forget that women’s experiences are incredibly diverse, and that womanhood—even African womanhood—is no monolith. In a way, that’s what’s at the heart of this novel by Emmanuel Dongala, about a group of women who break stones on the banks of a river in an imagined African country, and who decide to push for a better return on their labour.
I loved hearing about how each of them ended up there—the author in the process blowing up the reader’s assumptions, because when we find people in more precarious positions than our own, we always make assumptions. But the main plot of the novel is also wonderful: a group of women going up against a powerful and corrupt autocracy, with a happy (if somewhat bittersweet) ending, with their encountering a powerful woman minister and a stereotypical and very familiar Mother of the Nation (the First Lady) on the way. They come up against the brutal police service and a broken health system. There are all of the ways ordinary people continue to survive a broken state. There’s also love: an awful ex, and a budding romance.
The women have overcome sometimes terrible odds to even be at the riverside, and it’s a mistake to underestimate these warriors because of their current station in life. Even though many of the details of their experiences are grim, this is ultimately a feel-good novel and a powerful story—one that the minister of women’s affairs in the novel, and anyone who claims to advocate for women, would do well to read.
Thank you to Lauren Cerand, Schaffner Press and to Edelweiss for access to this DRC.
Driving through a suburb on the outskirts of Harare recently, an area with lots of new houses going up, I saw a woman of indeterminate age sitting in front of her tiny house, breaking rocks. It was just a glimpse, and I wished afterwards that I had stopped to speak to her, to hear a little of her story; but I was in a hurry, and the moment was lost. It’s not that I ever forget that I’m a woman, but it’s easy to begin to take one’s own experiences and stories for the only truth, to forget that women’s experiences are incredibly diverse, and that womanhood—even African womanhood—is no monolith. In a way, that’s what’s at the heart of this novel by Emmanuel Dongala, about a group of women who break stones on the banks of a river in an imagined African country, and who decide to push for a better return on their labour.
I loved hearing about how each of them ended up there—the author in the process blowing up the reader’s assumptions, because when we find people in more precarious positions than our own, we always make assumptions. But the main plot of the novel is also wonderful: a group of women going up against a powerful and corrupt autocracy, with a happy (if somewhat bittersweet) ending, with their encountering a powerful woman minister and a stereotypical and very familiar Mother of the Nation (the First Lady) on the way. They come up against the brutal police service and a broken health system. There are all of the ways ordinary people continue to survive a broken state. There’s also love: an awful ex, and a budding romance.
The women have overcome sometimes terrible odds to even be at the riverside, and it’s a mistake to underestimate these warriors because of their current station in life. Even though many of the details of their experiences are grim, this is ultimately a feel-good novel and a powerful story—one that the minister of women’s affairs in the novel, and anyone who claims to advocate for women, would do well to read.
Thank you to Lauren Cerand, Schaffner Press and to Edelweiss for access to this DRC.
Displaying 1 of 1 review