That’s What Friends are For

This is my second Senegalese novel (the first was the amusing Xala, last year) and so far one of my favorite African novels of the 13 or so I’ve read.

So Long a Letter is the story of two Senegalese women, friends living in post-colonial Dakar, written in the form of a long letter from Ramatoulaye to Aissatou.  Ramatoulaye is grieving the recent death of her husband Modou. We gradually learn that Modou was no saint, however, and that Aissatou also is without her husband, Mawdo Ba–because she divorced him after he took a second wife.

Ramatoulaye pours her heart out to Aissatou, reminiscing about their youth at a French colonial teacher’s college, their early years of marriage, and the social dilemmas their unions present.  Aissatou, a mere goldsmith’s daughter, is looked down upon by her husband’s once royal family; Ramatoulaye’s mother disapproves of Modou (and is proven right, eventually).  Both husbands succeed in their careers, through which we get glimpses of the post-colonial industries of Senegal, and both men also ultimately betray their longsuffering and loving wives by taking a second, younger wife.  Ramatoulaye and Aissatou react differently to their similar situations, and Ramatoulaye muses eloquently on their choices.   And then, even in middle age, life throws new challenges at them: a daughter’s unplanned pregnancy, a conniving mother-in-law.

This is a short (100 pages max) book, brimming with beauty and heartache.  The beauty of deep female friendship is, I think, very rarely captured in such beautiful writing.  And despite the fact that these women find themselves frequently in unjust, infuriating situations (can you imagine how you’d react to the news that your husband moving in with his new 18 year old wife?) this is ultimately a book that nevertheless feels hopeful and strong.  Some books that highlight women’s plights can (and indeed are designed to, and should) be overwhelmingly saddening and sobering; this one feels sobering too, but deeply hopeful, like a songbird in the middle of a desert.

Besides the insight into matters of the heart, Ba deftly explores what it means to be a woman in a modernizing African / post-colonial / Muslim country.  Both Ramatoulaye and Aissatou are “modern women”, a new generation: highly educated, employed outside their homes as teachers, absolutely feminist–and at the same time, and by their own choice, domestic, religious, and traditional.   And their lifelong friendship helps them figure out how to be all these things at once, without breaking.