Mariama Bâ a Modern Muslim Woman who refused to be content with her lot was born on April 17th in Dakar she had to fight to gain an education, as such things were not considered correct for a girl to partake in by her strict grandparents into whose care she had been placed. Her father’s insistence she be offered the opportunity finally swayed them and Mariama the author and feminist was born.
Her frustration with the fate of the women of Africa and ultimately her acceptance for that which she could not change formed the topic of her novel So Long a Letter in which she relays the sadness and unfairness of a life where a woman cannot grieve alone for her husband, instead having to share even his death with his younger second wife. Sadly she died shortly before her second novel was published, a great loss for Africa’s women and literature in general.
“Friendship has splendors that love knows not. It grows stronger when crossed, whereas obstacles kill love. Friendship resists time, which wearies and severs couples. It has heights unknown to love.”
“The flavour of life is love. The salt of life is also love.”
“The word ‘happiness’ does indeed have meaning, doesn’t it? I shall go out in search of it.”
“A nervous breakdown waits around the corner for anyone who lets himself wallow in bitterness. Little by little, it takes over your whole being.”
“Each life has its share of heroism, an obscure heroism, born of abdication, of renunciation and acceptance under the merciless whip of fate.”
“A woman must marry the man who loves her, but never the one she loves; that is the secret of lasting happiness.”
“The most humble of huts is pleasing when it is clean; the most luxurious setting offers no attraction if it is covered in dust.”
“In a word, a man’s success depends on feminine support.”
“Try explaining to them that a working woman is no less responsible for her home. Try explaining to them that nothing is done if you do not step in, that you have to see to everything, do everything all over again: cleaning up, cooking, ironing. There are the children to be washed, the husband to be looked after. The working woman has a dual task, of which both halves, equally arduous, must be reconciled.”
So Long a Letter won the first Noma Award for Publishing in Africa, and was recognised as one of Africa’s 100 Best Books of the 20th Century in an initiative organised by the Zimbabwe International Book Fair.
Birmingham Poet, Benjamin Zephaniah dies, aged 65
Top Authors Join Legal Battle Against OpenAI for Mass Copyright Infringement
Literary Icon, Cormac McCarthy has died
The Literary World Mourns Martin Amis
