Sembène's third and most famous novel is "Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu" ("God's Bits of Wood", 1960); most critics consider it his masterpiece, rivaled only by "Xala". The novel fictionalizes the real-life story of a railroad strike on the Dakar-Niger line that lasted from 1947 to 1948. Though the charismatic and brilliant union spokesman, Ibrahima Bakayoko, is the most central figure, the novel has no true hero except the community itself, which bands together in the face of hardship and oppression to assert their rights. Accordingly, the novel features nearly fifty characters in both Senegal and neighboring Mali, showing the strike from all possible angles; in this, the novel is often compared to Émile Zola's "Germinal".