So Long a Letter (Ba)

Author Bio
• Birth—1929
• Where—Dakar, Senegal, Africa
• Died—1981
• Education—Ecole Normale, Senegal
• Awards—The first Noma Prize for Publishing in Africa, 1980

Mariama Ba was a Senegalese author and feminist, who wrote in French. Born in Dakar, she was raised a Muslim, but at an early age came to criticise what she perceived as inequalities between the sexes of the African and Islamic traditions.

Her frustration with the fate of African women is expressed in her first novel, So Long a Letter. In it she depicts the sorrow and resignation of a woman who must share the mourning for her late husband with his second and younger wife. Abiola Irele called it "the most deeply felt presentation of the female condition in African fiction." This short book was awarded the first Noma Prize for Publishing in Africa in 1980.

Ba died a year later, in 1981, after a protracted illness before publishing her second novel, Scarlet Song. That novel describes the hardships a woman faces when her husband abandons her for a younger woman.

In addition to her career as a writer, Ba was also a teacher and feminist. She was among the first to illustrate the disadvantaged position of women in African society, focusing on the importance of the grandmother, mother, sister, daughter, cousin and friend—how each deserves the title, “mother of Africa.” Her source of determination and commitment to the feminist cause stemmed from her background, her parent’s life and her schooling.

Ba was born in Dakar Senegal in 1929, into an educated and well-to-do Senegalese family. Her father was a career civil servant who became Minister of Health in 1956 (one of the first ministers of state). One of her grandfathers served as an interpreter in the French occupation regime.

After her mother’s death, Ba was raised largely in the traditional manner by her maternal grandparents. Altough she received an early education in French, and attended a Koranic school, her grandparents had no plans to educate her beyond primary school. It was ony at her father's insistence that she continued her studies, eventually entering the Ecole Normale, where she prepared for a career as a school teacher. Ba taught from 1947 to 1959, before transferring to the Regional Inspectorate of Teaching as an educational inspector. She also married a Senegalese member of Parliament, Obeye Diop, but divorced him and was left to care for their nine children.

Ba saw the failure of African liberation struggles, and her earliest works call for a rejection of the “French assimilationist policy.” She also advocated a reconsideration and reinvigor-ation of African life—criticizing the unequal balance of power between men and married women, in particular. Ba became active in women’s associations, defending women’s rights and promoting female education through speeches and articles in local newspapers. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)