 The stories were published at a time when many African writers (including Dadié and such authors as Birago Diop) were creating a new outlet for traditional African art, converting oral literature into written literature, and adapting writing to convey the tradition of orality.The 1940s and 1950s saw a great wave of African prose literature, a time that gave rise to "the African novel".At the same time, writers sought to express the more traditional oral prose in print, and to somehow make up for the loss of "an atmosphere warmed with music, handclapping, laughter, dancing, and singing".