So Long a Letter

The epistolary love story of female friendship 

Author: Mariam Ba 

Country: Senegal

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

So long a letter, as the name suggests, so long a book. Not because it’s as long as suitable boy. It’s only a 100 pages. The story goes that it took me long to procure and read this book. 

International airports are a culture milieu, you never know who you meet. On one of my foreign business trips, I was waiting at Istanbul airport for my connecting flight. It wasn’t the love of my life as Cinema would make you believe. He was waiting at home. Instead I met a Senegalese woman. We exchange a few eye contacts, before one of us smiled and said Hello. I was on an offsite and she was in a tech training and will go back and upgrade local office. 

We hardly chatted for 10 minutes, when I asked her. If I had to read one book of your country, what should it be. She said ‘So long a letter’. The one book which showcases the lives and people especially women of her country. I might never travel to Senegal but I would have been there!  She waiting for a flight to her hometown in Senegal and I waiting for my current home Mumbai. 

The name of the book stayed and I searched for it on Amazon. It wasn’t published or distributed in India, so I had to go for a foreign copy. It was expensive so I thought wait and watch. Prices keep changing, you see! 

Then a Singaporean colleague gave me a not so secret Santa gift of a USD 100 on Amazon.com. I ordered this book after travails of documentation in international shipping and expensive shipping rates. It was finally delivered at home along with a children’s book on Kindness for dear daughter. 

This is what this book is about Kindess. Two women exchange letters sharing their lives and feelings. The bonding and the friendship helps you feel the women. Some times you pity, sometimes you applaud her for her strength and the weakness. The social milieu which makes women accept things and live with them. I am all a protagonent  of diversity. Now women can question to be different than what we are supposed to be. Care givers, compromisers and sacrifices. The guilt and the judgements, the rules and the traditions, the celebration of a woman, the misery of being a woman,  the mother, tbe wife, the daughter and the daughter in law. The life spent on keeping and running the family. 

So long a letter, the epistolary love story between two friends - Ramatoulaye and Aissoutou is what keeps them going. The secret to any amazing girl friendship is the conversations. When was the last time you had the soul searching, soul fulfilling and self loving chat with your gf. Book that meeting now. Buy some wine and some girlie stuff! 

Now the special aspects about this book. Other than the fact that it is at the hallmark of Africa’s feminist fiction. There are many other reasons to read it, and let me relish and reemphasize. Why you should read: 

A feminist, a fighter

An epistolary account

A letter to a sister  

An African woman in early 20th century 

Scared mission of a writer I always thought was to tell stories. Mariam Ba felt it was to strike out at the archaic practices, traditions and customs that are not real part of our precious cultural heritage. 

The customs, culture and traditions of their religion and place, especially the mourning of the dead and the distribution of the finances amongst two widows. 

The different races and republics of former French West Africa. The Fon girl from Dahomey, Malinke from Guinea, Toucouler, Dioufene and the class barriers. The traditions of marriage, mourning, divorce and second weddings. Their food - did you know Siam rice is much loved by Senegalese. 

Some gems of lines and paras from the book: 

She devoted herself with the affection of a tigress to her ‘one and only man’. When she swore by her only son’s nose, the symbol of life, she had said everything. 

My mother’s words came back to me: ‘too perfect…’ I completed at last my mother’s thought with the end of the dictum: “… to be honest’. 

I told myself what every betrayed woman says: if Modou was milk, it was I who had all the cream. The rest, well, nothing but water with a vague smell of milk. 

His egoistic eye looks over his partners shoulders. He compares what he has with what he no longer has, what he has with what he could have. 

A black African, she should have been able to fit without difficulty into a black African society, Senegal and Ivory coast both having experiences the same colonial power. But Africa is diverse, divided. The same country can change its character and outlook several times over, from north to south or from east to west. 

Strange and varied manifestations of neuro-vegetative dystonia. Doctors beware especially if you are neurologists or psychiatrists. Often, the pains you are told of have their roots in moral torment. Vexations suffered and constant frustrations: these are what accumulate somewhere in the body and choke it. 

The problem is that you are depressed, that is… not happy. You wish the conditions of life were different from what they are in reality, and this is what is torturing you. 

One of the new couples neighbors explained to me that the ‘child’ would go ‘all a quiver’ each time Modou said my name or showed any desire to see his children. 

I’ve related at one go your story as well as mine.  I’ve said the essential, for pain, even  when it’s past, leaves the same marks on the individual when recalled. 

But I always acted alone; she was never a participant in my problems, only informed- just like any ‘vulgar’ acquaintance’, she would complain. 

Grant mothers Dictum - The mother of a family has no time for travel. But she has time to die. 

Being born of the same parents is just like spending the night in the sand bedroom. 

You can feed your stomach as well as you please; it will still provide for itself without your knowing. 

And then, one evening, annoyed by my naivety. Farmata said boldly: ‘Question your daughters, Ramatoulaye. A mother must be pessimistic.’  

The author talks: 

 About house wives  

About Cinema 

About books 

Please do read 🤓