So Long a Letter
Mariama Bâ's So Long a Letter is a short epistolary novel about recently widowed Ramatoulaye, whose husband betrayed her by taking a much-younger second wife. In a letter to her best friend Aissatou, she reflects a long marriage, one filled first with happiness and then, after her husband's second wedding, with anguish and resentment.
Author:
Mariama Bâ won the Noma Award in 1980 for her first novel, So Long a Letter. Born in Dakar, Senegal, Bâ worked as both a teacher and an education inspector, and later became active in Senegalese politics and women's rights. She passed away in 1981, a year before her second book, Scarlet Song, was published.
Published: 1981
Length: 90 pages
Set in: Senegal
Translated by: Modupe Bode-Thomas