Stone Breakers

Overview

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.

Author Biography

Born in the Republic of Congo in 1941, Emmanuel Dongala is a scientist and author who came to the United States in 1997 during the civil war in his native country and was offered a professorship at Bard College, and later Simon's Rock Preparatory School, where he taught until 2014. Dongala is the author most recently of the acclaimed novel, THE BRIDGETOWER SONATA, as well as JOHNNY MAD DOG, LITTLE CHILDREN COME FROM THE STARS, and THE FIRE OF ORIGINS. He is the recipient of the 2011 Prix Ahmada Kourouma Award and has been shortlisted for the Prix Albertine in 2020. He lives in Great Barrington, MA.