Reflecting on 'So Long a Letter' by Mariama Bâ: A Deep Dive into Senegalese Women's Lives
BY MARIAMA BA
I'm so tired of praising the considerable mental strength and remarkable resilience of Black women, but I'll probably do it again.
"A so long letter" is an epistolary novel published in 1979 that follows the lives of Ramatoulaye and Aissatou, two childhood friends whose paths diverge in adulthood when Aissatou moves to America. In Dakar, the letter is motivated by the sudden death of Modou, Ramatoulaye's husband, from whom she has just separated.
Mariama Ba, a prolific author die 2 years after the publishing of the novel.
She is interested in the changing social climate in Senegal and the crucial role that women could and should play in this process.
Using Rama and Aissatou's shared past, she crafts an all-too-familiar story about the many ways women can challenge cultural traditions and promote new roles for themselves and future generations.
The two heroines see their two marriages based on love shattered under the weight of tradition by their husbands' decision to take a second, much younger
wife.
Through this personal misfortune, they will emancipate themselves and find their economic freedom. Going back to school, learning to drive or simply learning to live for themselves, in the end, both will decide to empower themselves at their own pace.
Mariama Ba rightfully asserts that if men cannot live without women, then women can live without men making feminism the central theme of this work with friendship as its underpinning.