The Female Condition in Africa: A Literary Exploration by Mariama Ba

Abstract

The emergence in recent years of a small but significant body of fiction by African women is indeed one of the most interesting developments in post-1970 literary activity in Africa. In a field for too long the predominant preserve of men from whose pens and imagination come the bulk of the literary portrayals of women in African societies, the appearance of African female novelists not only extends, but, in extending, also reshapes and redefines both the contours and content of the African literary landscape, especially in the area of women and their role in society. One of the leading artists in this category of new female literary figures is the late Senegalese novelist, Mariama Ba.

This article examines, on a general level, the question of male/female and female/female relationships and the personal as well as sociopolitical and cultural implications of these for Senegalese and African societies. At a more specific level, the article looks at the theme of abandonment, its causes and its effects on spouses, especially females, and the various mechanisms adopted by these to cope with or transcend the emotional and other traumas brought about by abandonment.

Our examination focuses on Mariama Ba's only two novels, Une Si Longue Lettre (So Long A Letter) and Un Chant Ecarlate, and much of the thematic discussion is done through a close look at Ba's use of technique and form culled from Western, Islamic and African artistic traditions, especially her expert use of the letter as narrative vehicle.