Talk:So Long a Letter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article includes an incomplete infobox, which is part of the standard display of novel information developed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels and also Wikipedia:WikiProject Books. You can help by filling in the missing or incorrect information yourself, or copying the "source code" into the attached article if you need it, and filling in the information yourself, or by providing the following information here on the Talk page so that someone else can construct the box: | ||||
|
||||
Edit this message |
My rought and somewhat literal translation:
Une si longue lettre (So long a letter) is a major work because of what it says about the condition of women. At its heart lies the letter which one of them, Ramatoulaye, addresses to her best friend, during the traditional reclusion which follows her widowhood.
In it she evokes their happy memories of when they were students who were impatient to change the world, and of the hope inspired by the Independences (?). But she also recalls the forced marriages, and the absence of women's rights. And while her step-family come to nimbly take over the affairs of the deceased, Ramatoulaye sadly evokes the day when her husband took another, younger wife, ruining 25 years of life together and of love. The Senegalese Mariama Bâ is the first African novelist to describe with such clarity (literally with such light) the place given to women in her society.