Une si longue lettre,
Mariama Bâ
La Sénégalaise Mariama Bâ est la première romancière africaine á décrire avec une telle lumière la place faite aux femmes dans sa société.
Marianne
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About Us
- FLC Readers
- The FLC Evening Book Club is an activity of the First English Evangelical Lutheran Church, located on Grant Street in Pittsburgh. Together we enjoy reading and talking about books with a spiritual or religious theme, as well as novels and memoirs. We meet in various restaurants, and sometimes match the cuisine to the literature! For more information, contact First Lutheran Church.
Merci beaucoup, Marianne.
ReplyDeleteI have read the book a long time ago - I am sure before I had children. It is a moving book, and maybe something to be read by the book club?
Here is a nice description: o Long a Letter is a landmark book - a sensation in its own country and an education for outsiders. Mariama Ba, a longtime women's activist, set out to write a book that exposed the double standard between men and women in Africa. The result, So Long a Letter, eventually won the first Noma Award for Publishing in Africa. The book itself takes the form of a long letter written by a widow, Ramatoulaye, to her friend, over the mandatory forty-day mourning period following the death of a husband. Both women had married for love and had happy, productive marriages; both were educated, had work they loved and were intellectually alive. During their lives, both of these women's husbands chose to take a second wife - and each woman then made a different choice. Ramatoulaye decided to stay married, although it meant rarely seeing her husband and knowing that he was squandering money on a young girl, a friend of her own daughter. Ramatoulaye's friend divorced her husband and eventually left the country, settling in the United States. In her letter, Ramatoulaye examines her life and that of other women of Senegal - their upbringing and training and the cultural restrictions placed upon them. It is a devastating attack, made all the more powerful because of the intelligence and maturity of the narrator and the ability of Mariama Ba to honor two very different choices within one framework.
After 25+ years I would love to re-read it!
Another book I would like to read is a book my French girlfriend gave me for Christmas, and I have no found any time to read it. It is called "The elegance of a hedgehog" it is an intriguing story.
Let me know what you think!
I would like to read both books. I think that being a mother, and a mother of an adult child, would make reading So Long a Letter even more enjoyable. The Elegance of a Hedgehog sounds intriguing, too. We seem to be finding books that I would really like to read and discuss!
ReplyDeleteMarianne