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Original Title: Une si longue lettre
ISBN: 0435905554 (ISBN13: 9780435905552)
Edition Language: English
Characters: Ramatoulaye, Aissatou, Mawdo Ba, Modou Fall, Binetou
Setting: Senegal
Literary Awards: Noma Award for Publishing in Africa (1980)
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So Long a Letter Paperback | Pages: 90 pages
Rating: 3.92 | 6627 Users | 595 Reviews

Details Appertaining To Books So Long a Letter

Title:So Long a Letter
Author:Mariama Bâ
Book Format:Paperback
Book Edition:Special Edition
Pages:Pages: 90 pages
Published:June 28th 1989 by Heinemann Educational Books (first published 1981)
Categories:Fiction. Cultural. Africa. Literature. African Literature. France. Western Africa. Senegal. Feminism

Representaion To Books So Long a Letter

So Long A Letter by Mariama Ba is an entry in the book 500 Great Books by Women by Erica Baumeister. I am part of the goodreads group by the same name, and I have made it a long term goal to read as many of the choices as possible. Ba was born in Dakar, Senegal in 1929. She attended school and achieved a profession at a time when women in her country had few choices outside of marriage. Ahead of her time, Ba fought for equal rights for men and women both inside of and outside of the home. So Long A Letter is an autobiographical novella, in which Ba professes her desire to see equality amongst all people come to her country.

Ramatoulaye is in the mourning period for her husband Modou. Prior to his death, he abandoned her for a woman half of her age despite having twelve children with her. Rather than divorcing Ramatoulaye, she becomes a co-wife, which is legal in Muslim Africa. Even though she should be afforded the rights of a head wife, Ramatoulaye does not receive anything from her husband, who is supposedly in love with a new wife young enough to be his daughter. At Modou's funeral, both women are given equal treatment even though he had been married to Ramatoulaye much longer, and in the eyes of her community, she should be receive the majority of compensation.

Unable to cope with her depressed feelings, Ramatoulaye composes a long letter to her dear friend Aissatou, who broke through Senegal's glass ceiling, and is now an ambassador in America. Ramatoulaye pours out her frustration that in Senegal the social system is in place that a girl can either get married out of school or be destined to work in a low paying job as midwife or elementary teacher. At the time of publication, there were only four women out of one hundred in the Senegalese assembly, assuring that men make the laws that keep women subservient. It is little wonder to Ramatoulaye that her co-wife would marry her husband while still a school girl. This realization does little to mask her feelings, that of a wife abandoned by the husband of her children, who is now struggling to make ends meet.

Suitors come to Ramatoulaye following her mourning period. They assume that she would rather be married to someone she does not love than single. Yet, Ba through Ramatoulaye writes that women should strive to be more than wives and mothers and hope to achieve jobs as doctor, teacher, ambassador, or any profession that a man also does. Ba wrote this in the post colonial period when Senegalese women were first thinking about equality. Her writing was a means to generate more thinking of this issue in hopes that African women strive to be on equal footing as men.

Mariama Ba created a strong female character in Ramatoulaye. She ushered in an era of African women writers who voiced their concerns about treatment of women in society. Unfortunately, Ba passed away shortly after the publication of her second book, but she left a legacy with So Long a Letter, the first African book to win the Noma Award. A first of its genre, So Long a Letter merits inclusion as a great book by women, and rates 4.5 bright stars.

Rating Appertaining To Books So Long a Letter
Ratings: 3.92 From 6627 Users | 595 Reviews

Rate Appertaining To Books So Long a Letter
"Ebb and tide of feeling: heat and dazzlement, the wood fires, the sharp green mango, bitten into in turns, a delicacy in our greedy mouths. I close my eyes." What you hear is the voice of the heartbroken Ramatoulaye, who has been forced into solitude (according to the dictates of Islam) to mourn the death of the husband who, when he lived, humiliated and abandoned her. This is an epistolary; a meditation on life and life's choices. It is an anguished plea from one conservative woman, to her

This novel is in the form of a letter, written by the widowed Ramatoulaye and describing her struggle for survival.Muslim Ramatoulaye, a Senegalese abandoned wife adjusts to her new role with utter strength tinged with sorrowfulness. "From then on, my life changed. I had prepared myself for equal sharing, according to the precepts of Islam concerning polygamic life. I was left with empty hands. My children, who disagreed with my decision, sulked. In opposition to me, they represented a majority



It is fitting to follow a reading of Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman with Mariama Bâ's 1980 novella Une si longue lettre, because one thing that struck me about both works is the interrelation of feminism/female roles and the larger political scene in the country at large. In this regard the two works could also form a parallel with Naguib Mahfouz's Palace Walk : in all three pieces, whether they treat of the French Revolution or Senegal's independence from France,

Narrator Ramatoulaye's story, could, with a couple of tweaks, be the subject of a thread on Mumsnet or a similar forum frequented by middle-aged women. 'OMG my husband remortgaged our house to get flats for his younger girlfriend and her mum, and now he's died.' (Only in the novel, it's beautifully written.) In the story it may be polygamy the narrator is unhappy about in 1970s Senegal rather than separation or a mistress, but there is more similarity and relatability than the old fashioned and

What a moving series of memories written as a letter from one Senegalese woman to another. Often as close friends lives do.... their lives seemed to mirror in so many ways. I think about my best friend and I as we both became teachers.... we both married... we both divorced. Through happy and sad times we are always there for one another as these two women are- always loving- always right there even if our choices/ decisions are different.The particular cultural forcus of this book presents a

An excellent Sunday afternoon read and pertinent to much that is being written and read in the media under the banner of the silencing of women today.This short, articulate novella is actually a conversation, or a lengthy letter from one widow to her best friend, whom she hasn't seen for some years, but who is arriving tomorrow.Our recent widow is reflecting on how she is unable to detach from memories of better times in the past, during those 25 years where she was happily married and the only