Mariama Ba & So Long a Letter

Another woman speaking her mind is Ramatoulaye, the narrator of Mariama Ba's 1979 novel, So Long a Letter.  Ramatoulaye is a middle-aged mother of many children, a recent widow, and a highly educated woman, the first woman in her family to receive a Western education and prepare for a profession.  Several years earlier, her husband had abandoned her so that he could take a second, younger wife--a girl who was the same age as his oldest daughter, Deba.  Since Senegal accepted polygamy, Ramatoulaye was still married to her husband, a Westernized physician.  So Long a Letter is written in the form of a letter to Ramatoulaye's friend from college, written while the narrator mourns her husband and her friend travels from France to visit her.

A Muslim student at Wayne State University has written this book review, using her religious and family background (her husband is Nigerian) to explain the book to readers who do not have this background:

http://www.is.wayne.edu/mnissani/solongbk.htm

Another reviewer argues that reading Ramatoulaye's narrative as a letter is a mistake.  Instead, she is keeping a journal.

http://tukopamoja.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!8234535A7FECFC04!1267.entry

Since Mariama Ba wrote in French, many sites are in that language.  This Wikipedia entry seems to be her most extensive biography in English:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariama_Ba

I've found another biography:

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/mba.htm

Google has translated this interview from 1979 into English.  The translation is fairly rough, especially when it comes to pronouns, but I thought that you would be interested in seeing Ms. Ba's perspective on her life, her novel, and society. 

http://72.14.203.104/translate_c?hl=en&u=http://aflit.arts.uwa.edu.au/AMINABaLettre.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dmariama%2Bba%26start%3D10%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26channel%3Ds%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN%26pwst%3D1


Above is a picture of Dakar, the city where Ms. Ba was born.

For more information about Senegal, her country, see these sites:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/1064496.stm

http://www.senegal-tourism.com/

http://amadou.net/ar/history.html

http://amadou.net/ar/poets.html

Here are some links about other women writers from Africa.

http://www.usp.nus.edu.sg/post/africa/ghana/aidoo/aidoobio.html

http://www.usp.nus.edu.sg/post/africa/godona1.html#amadi

http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Emech.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/arts/features/womenwriters/emechetta_work.shtml

http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Head.html

http://www.thuto.org/english/bessiehead/eng453-03/index.html