So Long a Letter
Mariama Bâ’s pioneering debut, So Long a Letter, captures the private lives of women in 1970s Senegal.
Recently widowed, Ramatoulaye is required to take sole responsibility for the long mourning process of her late husband. A husband she has not seen in over four years – not after he married his second wife. In a letter to her friend, Ramatoulaye recalls both of their experiences as students impatient to change the world, as wives suffering in the private sphere of marriage, and as mothers witnessing the dangers of Westernisation.
Undaunted by topics of polygamy, social castes, and religion, So Long a Letter is a novel rich with poetic prose and profound wisdom.
’Mariama Bâ is in a class of her own, conveying with real power and poetry a subtle, changing world of female experience.’ Guardian
‘The most deeply felt presentation of the female condition in African fiction.’ Abiola Irele
Mariama Bâ was born in Dakar, Senegal in 1929. Brought up by her grandparents after the early death of her mother, Bâ's father fought to continue her education past primary school.
After winning the first prize in the entrance examination to train as a teacher at École Normale, Bâ taught in Dakar from 1947 until 1959 and later became an educational inspector.
A vocal activist for women's rights and class equality in Africa, her literary work often criticised the lack of educational opportunities offered to women as well as challenging the systems of polygamy and castes in Senegalese society.
Mariama Bâ died in 1981.
Translated from French by Modupé Bodé-Thomas.