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 […]