So long a letter full book pdf download

And I learned to drive, stifling my fear. The narrow space between the wheel and the seat was mine. The flattened clutch glided in the gears. The brake reduced the forward thrust and, to speed along, I had to step on the accelerator. I did not trust the accelerator. At the slightest pressure from my feet, the car lurched forward. My feet learned to dance over the pedals. I would tell myself: Don't disappoint Aissatou.

I won this battle of nerves and sang-froid. The volume begins with an introductory essay on postcolonial criticism and African writing, then presents alphabetically arranged profiles of some 60 writers, including Chinua Achebe, Nadine Gordimer, Bessie Head, Doris Lessing, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Tahbar Ben Jelloun, among others. Each entry includes a brief biography, a discussion of major works and themes that appear in the author's writings, an overview of the critical response to the author's work, and a bibliography of primary and secondary sources.

These profiles are written by expert contributors and reflect many different perspectives. The volume concludes with a selected general bibliography of the most important critical works on postcolonial African literature. The workbook format of these booklets encourages an active approach to the reading. Popular Books. The Becoming by Nora Roberts.

The list supplied by Lady Mother-in-Law and Binetou made no mention of certain [Page 11 ] objects and items of furniture, which had mysteriously disappeared or had been fraudulently removed. You know that I am excessively sentimental. I was not at all pleased by this display on either side. Was it madness, weakness, irresistible love? What inner confusion led Modou Fall to marry Binetou?

To overcome my bitterness, I think of human destiny. Each life has its share of heroism, an obscure heroism, born of abdication, of renunciation and acceptance under the merciless whip of fate.

I think of all the blind people the world over, moving in darkness. I think of all the paralysed the world over, dragging themselves about. I think of all the lepers the world over, wasted by their disease. Victims of a sad fate which you did not choose, compared with your lamentations, what is my quarrel, cruelly motivated, with a dead man who no longer has any hold over my destiny?

Combining your despair, you could have been avengers and made them tremble, all those who are drunk on their wealth; tremble, those upon whom fate has bestowed favours. A horde powerful in its repugnance and revolt, you could have snatched the bread that your hunger craves. Your stoicism has made you not violent or subversive but true heroes, unknown in the mainstream of history, never upsetting established order, despite your miserable condition.

Thinking of you, I thank God for my eyes which daily embrace heaven and earth. If today moral fatigue makes my limbs stiff, tomorrow it will leave my body. Then, relieved, my legs will carry me slowly and I shall again have around me the iodine and the blue of the sea. The star and white cloud will be mine.

The breath of wind will again refresh my face. I will stretch out, turn around, I will vibrate. Oh, health, live in me. Oh, health. My efforts cannot for long take my mind off my disappointment.

I think of the suckling baby, no sooner born than orphaned. I think of the cross the one-armed man has to bear. I think. But my despair persists, but my rancour remains, but the waves of an immense sadness break in me! Madness or weakness?

Heartlessness or irresistible love? What inner torment led Modou Fall to marry Binetou? And to think that I loved this man passionately, to think that I gave him thirty years of my life, to think that twelve times over I carried his child. The addition of a rival to my life was not enough for him.

In loving someone else, he burned his past, both morally and materially. He dared to commit such an act of disavowal. And yet, what didn't he do to make me his wife! Ponty-Ville is the countryside still green from the last rains, a celebration of youth right in the middle of nature, banjo music in dormitories transformed into dance floors, conversations held along the rows of geraniums or under the thick mango trees.

Modou Fall, the very moment you bowed before me, asking me to dance, I knew you were the one I was waiting for. Tall and athletically built, of course. Olive-coloured skin due to your distant Moorish blood, no question. Virility and fineness of features harmoniously blended, once again, no question.

But, above all, you knew how to be tender. You could fathom every thought, every desire. You knew many undefinable things, which glorified you and sealed our relationship. As we danced, your forehead, hairline already receding, bent over my own. The same happy smile lit up our faces. The pressure of your hand became more tender, more possessive.

Then you left for France and, according to your letters, you lived there as a recluse, attaching little importance to the glitter that met your regard; but you grasped the deep sense of a history that has worked so [Page 14 ] many wonders and of a great culture that overwhelmed you.

The milky complexion of the women had no hold on you. Again, quoting from your letters: 'On the strictly physical plane, the white woman's advantage over the black woman lies in the variety of her colour, the abundance, length and softness of her hair. There are also the eyes which can be blue, green, often the colour of new honey. You missed the swinging hips of black women walking along the pavements, this gracious deliberate slowness characteristic of Africa, which charmed your eyes.

You were sick at heart at the dogged rhythm of the life of the people and the numbing effect of the cold. You would finish by saying that your studies were your staff, your buttress.

You would end with a string of endearments and conclude by reassuring me: 'It's you whom I carry within me. You are my protecting black angel. Would I could quickly find you, if only to hold your hand tightly so that I may forget hunger and thirst and loneliness. With a degree in law! In spite of your voice and your gift of oratory, you preferred obscure work, less well paid but constructive for your country, to the showiness of the lawyer.

Your achievement did not stop there. I no longer scorn my mother's reserve concerning you, for a mother can instinctively feel where her child's happiness lies. I no longer laugh when I think that she found you too handsome, too polished, too perfect for a man.

She often spoke of the wide gap between your two upper incisors: the sign of the primacy of sensuality in the individual. What didn't she do, from then on, to separate us? She could see in you only the eternal khaki suit, the uniform of your school. All she remembered of you were your visits, considered too long.

You were idle, she said, therefore with plenty of time to waste. And you would use that time to 'stuff' my head, to the disadvantage of more interesting young people. Because, being the first pioneers of the promotion of African women, there were very few of us. Others labelled us devils. But many wanted to possess us. How many dreams did we nourish hopelessly that could have been fulfilled as lasting happiness and that we abandoned to embrace others, those that have burst miserably like soap bubbles, leaving us empty-handed?

Together, let us recall our school, green, pink, blue, yellow, a veritable rainbow: green, blue and yellow, the colours of the flowers everywhere in the compound; pink the colour of the dormitories, with the beds impeccably made. Let us hear the walls of our school come to life with the intensity of our study. Let us relive its intoxicating atmosphere at night, while the evening song, our joint prayer, rang out, full of hope.

The admission policy, which was based on an entrance examination for the whole of former French West Africa, now broken up into autonomous republics, made possible a fruitful blend of different intellects, characters, manners and customs. Nothing differentiated us, apart from specific racial features, the Fon girl from Dahomey and the Malinke one from Guinea. Friendships were made that have endured the test of time and distance.

We were true sisters, destined for the same mission of emancipation. To lift us out of the bog of tradition, superstition and custom, to make us appreciate a multitude of civilizations without renouncing our own, to raise our vision of the world, cultivate our personalities, strengthen our qualities, to make up for our inadequacies, to develop universal moral values in us: these [Page 16 ] were the aims of our admirable headmistress.

The word 'love' had a particular resonance in her. She loved us without patronizing us, with our plaits either standing on end or bent down, with our loose blouses, our wrappers. She knew how to discover and appreciate our qualities. How I think of her! It has accorded with the profound choices made by New Africa for the promotion of the black woman.

Thus, free from frustrating taboos and capable now of discernment, why should I follow my mother's finger pointing at Daouda Dieng, still a bachelor but too mature for my eighteen years. Working as an African doctor at the Polyclinique, he was well- to-do and knew how to use his position to advantage.

His villa, perched on a rock on the Corniche facing the sea, was the meeting place for the young elite. Nothing was missing, from the refrigerator, containing its pleasant drinks, to the record player, which exuded sometimes langorous, sometimes frenzied music.

Daouda Dieng also knew how to win hearts. Useful presents for my mother, ranging from a sack of rice, appreciated in that period of war penury, to the frivolous gift for me, daintily wrapped in paper and tied with ribbons. But I preferred the man in the eternal khaki suit. Our marriage was celebrated without dowry, without pomp, under the disapproving looks of my father, before the painful indignation of my frustrated mother, under the sarcasm of my surprised sisters, in our town struck dumb with astonishment.

A controversial marriage. I can still hear the angry rumours in town: 'What, a Toucouleur marrying a goldsmith's daughter? He will never "make money". What an insult to her, before her former co-wives. But Mawdo remained firm. He emphasized his total commitment to his choice of life partner by visiting your father, not at home but at his place of work.

He would return from his outings illuminated, happy to have 'moved in the right direction', he would say triumphantly. He would speak of your father as a 'creative artist'. He admired the man, weakened as he was by the daily dose of carbon dioxide he inhaled working in the acrid atmosphere of the dusty fumes. Gold is his medium, which he melts, pours, twists, flattens, refines, chases.

This life would animate the flame, sometimes red, sometimes blue, which [Page 18 ] would rise or curve, wax or wane at his command, depending on what the work demanded. And the gold specks in the showers of red sparks, and the uncouth songs of the apprentices punctuating the strokes of the hammer here, and the pressure of hands on the bellows there would make passers-by turn round.

Aissatou, your father knew all the rites that protect the working of gold, the metal of the djinns. Each profession has its code, known only to the initiated and transmitted from father to son. As soon as your elder brothers left the huts of the circumcised, they moved into this particular world, the whole compound's source of nourishment.

But what about your younger brothers? Their steps were directed towards the white man's school. Hard is the climb up the steep hill of knowledge to the white man's school: kindergarten remains a luxury that only those who are financially sound can offer their young ones.

Yet it is necessary, for this is what sharpens and channels the young ones' attention and sensibilities. Even though the primary schools are rapidly increasing, access to them has not become any easier.

They leave out in the streets an impressive number of children because of the lack of places. Entrance into secondary school is no panacea for the child at an age fraught with the problems of consolidating his personality, with the explosion of puberty, with the discovery of the various pitfalls: drugs, vagrancy, sensuality.

The university has its own large number of despairing rejects. What will the unsuccessful do? Apprenticeship to traditional crafts seems degrading to whoever has the slightest book- learning. The dream is to become a clerk. The trowel is spurned. The horde of the jobless swells the flood of delinquency.

Should we have been happy at the desertion of the forges, the workshops, the shoemaker's shops? Should we have rejoiced so wholeheartedly? Were we not beginning to witness the disappearance of an elite of traditional manual workers? Eternal questions of our eternal debates. We all agreed that much dismantling was needed to introduce modernity within [Page 19 ] our traditions. Torn between the past and the present, we deplored the 'hard sweat' that would be inevitable. We counted the possible losses.

But we knew that nothing would be as before. We were full of nostalgia but were resolutely progressive. His mother's rejection did not frighten him. Our lives developed in parallel. We experienced the tiffs and reconciliations of married life. In our different ways, we suffered the social constraints and heavy burden of custom. I loved Modou. I compromised with his people.

I tolerated his sisters, who too often would desert their own homes to encumber my own. They allowed themselves to be fed and petted. They would look on, without reacting, as their children romped around on my chairs. I tolerated their spitting, the phlegm expertly secreted under my carpets. His mother would stop by again and again while on her outings, always flanked by different friends, just to show off her son's social success but particularly so that they might see, at close quarters, her supremacy in this beautiful house in which she did not live.

I would receive her with all the respect due to a queen, and she would leave satisfied, especially if her hand closed over the banknote I had carefully placed there. But hardly would she be out than she would think of the new band of friends she would soon be dazzling. Modou's father was more understanding. More often than not, he would visit us without sitting down. He would accept [Page 20 ] a glass of cold water and would leave, after repeating his prayers for the protection of the house.

I knew how to smile at them all, and consented to wasting useful time in futile chatter. My sisters-in-law believed me to be spared the drudgery of housework. 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. How does one go about this? Therein lies the skill that makes all the difference to a home.

Some of my sisters-in-law did not envy my way of living at all. They saw me dashing around the house after a hard day at school. They appreciated their comfort, their peace of mind, their moments of leisure and allowed themselves to be looked after by their husbands, who were crushed under their duties. Others, limited in their way of thinking, envied my comfort and purchasing power.

They would go into raptures over the many 'gadgets' in my house: gas cooker, vegetable grater, sugar tongs. They forgot the source of this easy life; first up in the morning, last to go to bed, always working. You, Aissatou, you forsook your family-in-law, tightly shut in with their hurt dignity. You would lament to me: 'Your family-in-law respects you. You must treat them well. As for me, they look down on me from the height of their lost nobility.

What can I do? We rediscovered the old beatings of the heart that strengthened our feelings. We would walk along the Dakar Corniche, one of the most beautiful in West Africa, a sheer work of art wrought by nature. Rounded or pointed rocks, black or ochre- coloured, overlooking the ocean. Greenery, sometimes a veritable hanging garden spread out under the clear sky. We would go on to the road to Ouakam, which also leads to Ngor and further on to Yoff airport.

We would recognize on the way the narrow road leading farther on to Almadies beach. Our favourite spot was Ngor beach, situated near the village of the same name, where old bearded fishermen repaired their nets under the silk-cotton trees.

Naked and snotty children played in complete freedom when they were not frolicking about in the sea. On the fine sand, washed by the waves and swollen with water, naively painted canoes awaited their turn to be launched into the waters.

In their hollows small pools of blue water would glisten, full of light from the sky and sun. What a crowd on public holidays! Numerous families would stroll about, thirsty for space and fresh air.

People would undress, without embarrassment, tempted by the benevolent caress of the iodized breeze and the warmth from the sun's rays. The idle would sleep under spread parasols.

A few children, spade and bucket in hand, would build and demolish the castles of their imagination. In the evening the fishermen would return from their laborious outings. Once more, they had escaped the moving snare of the sea. At first simple points on the horizon, the boats would become more distinct from one another as they drew nearer. They would dance in the hollows of the waves, then would lazily let themselves be dragged along.

Fishermen would gaily furl their sails and draw in their tackle. While some of them would gather together the wriggling catch, others would wring out their soaked clothes and mop their faces. Under the wondering gaze of the kids, the live fish would flip up as the long sea snakes would curve themselves inwards. Hands would sort out, group, divide. We would buy a good selection at bargain prices for the house. The sea air would put us in good humour.

The pleasure we indulged in and in which all our senses rejoiced would intoxicate both rich and poor with health. Our communion with deep, bottomless and unlimited nature refreshed our souls. Depression and sadness would disappear, suddenly to be replaced by feelings of plenitude and expansiveness. Reinvigorated, we would set out for home.

How jealously we guarded the secret of simple pleasures, health-giving remedy for the daily tensions of life. Sangalkam remains the refuge of people from Dakar, those who want a break from the frenzy of the city. The younger set, in particular, has bought land there and built country residences: these green, open spaces are conducive to rest, meditation and the letting off of steam by children. This oasis lies on the road to Rufisque. Mawdo's mother had looked after the farm before her son's marriage.

The memory of her husband had made her attached to this plot of land, where their joint and patient hands had disciplined the vegetation that filled our eyes with admiration. Yourself, you added the small building at the far end: three small, simple bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen.

You grew many flowers in a few corners. You had a hen run built, then a closed pen for sheep. Coconut trees, with their interlacing leaves, gave protection from the sun.

Succulent sapodilla stood next to sweet-smelling pomegranates. Heavy mangoes weighed down the branches. Pawpaws resembling breasts of different shapes hung tempting and inaccessible from the tops of elongated trunks.

Green leaves and browned leaves, new grass and withered grass were strewn all over the ground. Under our feet the ants untiringly built and rebuilt their homes. How warm the shades over the camp beds! Teams for games [Page 23 ] were formed one after the other amid cries of victory or lamentations of defeat. And we stuffed ourselves with fruits within easy reach. And we drank the milk from coconuts. And we told 'juicy stories'! And we danced about, roused by the strident notes of a gramophone.

And the lamb, seasoned with white pepper, garlic, butter, hot pepper, would be roasting over the wood fire. And we lived. When we stood in front of our over-crowded classes, we represented a force in the enormous effort to be accomplished in order to overcome ignorance. Each profession, intellectual or manual, deserves consideration, whether it requires painful physical effort or manual dexterity, wide knowledge or the patience of an ant.

Ours, like that of the doctor, does not allow for any mistake. You don't joke with life, and life is both body and mind. To warp a soul is as much a sacrilege as murder.

Teachersat kindergarten level, as at university levelform a noble army accomplishing daily feats, never praised, never decorated. An army forever on the move, forever vigilant. An army without drums, without gleaming uniforms. This army, thwarting traps and snares, everywhere plants the flag of knowledge and morality. How we loved this priesthood, humble teachers in humble local schools.

How faithfully we served our profession, and how we spent ourselves in order to do it honour. Like all apprentices, we had learned how to practise it well at the demonstration school, a few steps away from our own, where experienced teachers taught the novices that we were how to apply, in the lessons we gave, our knowledge of psychology and method. In those children we set in motion waves that, breaking, carried away in their furl a bit of ourselves. His understanding of people and things endeared him to both employers and workers.

He focused his efforts on points that were easily satisfied, that made work lighter and life more pleasant. He sought practical improvements in the workers' conditions. His slogan was: what's the use of taunting with the impossible? Obtaining the 'possible' is already a victory. His point of view was not unanimously accepted, but people relied on his practical realism. Mawdo could take part in neither trade unionism nor politics, for he hadn't the time.

His reputation as a good doctor was growing; he remained the prisoner of his mission in a hospital filled to capacity with the sick, for people were going less and less to the native doctor who specialized in brewing the same concoctions of leaves for different illnesses.

Everybody was reading newspapers and magazines. There was unrest in North Africa. Did these interminable discussions, during which points of view concurred or clashed, complemented each other or were vanquished, determine the aspect of the New Africa? The assimilationist dream of the colonist drew into its crucible our mode of thought and way of life.

The sun helmet worn over the natural protection of our kinky hair, smoke-filled pipe in the mouth, white shorts just above the calves, very short dresses displaying shapely legs: a whole generation suddenly became aware of the ridiculous situation festering in our midst. The debate over the right path to take shook West Africa. Brave men went to prison; others, following in their footsteps, continued the work begun. It was the privilege of our generation to be the link between two periods in our history, one of domination, the other of independence.

We remained young and efficient, for we were the messengers of a new design. I heard people repeat that all the active forces in the country should be mobilized. And we said that over and above the unavoidable opting for such-and-such a party, such- and-such a model of society, what was needed was national unity. Many of us rallied around the dominant party, infusing it with new blood. To be productive in the crowd was better than crossing one's arms and hiding behind imported ideologies.

I close my eyes. This is an epistolary; a meditation on life and life's choices. It is an anguished plea from one conservative woman, to her li A brief, well-crafted novella in the form of a letter between two middle-aged friends. The writer is Ramatoulaye; her husband, has died suddenly and she is has to remain in seclusion for four months and ten days as per her religious strictures Islamic. The recipient is her friend Aissatou. Both women have had husband problems. She had divorced him as a result and had left to make a new life in America.

Shelves: wm, reality-check, translated, french, person-of-everything, shorty-short, person-of-reality, person-of-translated, reality-translated, person-of-reality-translated. Each profession, intellectual or manual, deserves consideration, whether it requires painful physical effort or manual dexterity, wide knowledge or the patience of an ant.

Ours, like that of a doctor, does not allow for any mistake. You don't joke with life, and life is both body and mind. To warp a soul is as much a sacrilege as murder. A comparison to Sleepless Nights is not too far apace, for what is more familiar of the epistolary form is counterbalanced by a less novelized perspective, exp Mariama Ba has crammed into less than one hundred pages a luminously beautiful reflection of an intelligent, wilful, self-assured middle-aged woman painfully conscious of the limits of her power in a patriarchal society, that is also a hymn to the glory of friendship between women and to the strength, courage, imagination, tenderness and sensuality of women as whole human beings interconnected to lovers, children, family members and friends.

The language is elegant, fragrant of the rich, ringing Mariama Ba was a Senegalese novelist, teacher, activist and feminist.

During her lifetime she was only able to publish this book. The book is basically a long series of lette If I'm being honest, I want to like this more than I do. And it's not the subject matter or prose, it's the orientation. There's an awkward angle I just can't shake. Let me explain. This novella is in epistolary form: a long letter from an aging widow who is progressive by her society's normative standards, perhaps boldly and bravely so to her great friend, Aissatou.

Both women have been transformed by their husbands' decision to make them co-wives. Ramatoulaye, our heroine, recounts her strug How many novels by Senegalese Muslim women have you read? Particularly ones dealing explicitly with both gender and religion? This is only about 80pages long, so is a quick read, and will probably help fill a gap in your reading which, in our current political climate, should be filled as a matter of some urgency.

Shelves: letters, fiction, translated, senegalese-literature, around-the-world, great-books-by-women, favorites. An excellent Sunday afternoon read and pertinent to much that is being written and read in the media under the banner of the silencing of women today. This short, articulate novella is actually a conversation, or a lengthy letter from one widow to her best friend, whom she hasn't seen for some years, but who is arriving tomorrow. Our recent widow is reflecting on how she is unable to detach from memories of better times in the past, during those 25 years where she was happily married and the only So long a letter is an intimate expose on Ramatoulaye's life as she writes a long letter to her life long friend, Aissatou.

The two women have known since they were little girls and now with many children each, one is divorced and the other is a widow. The letter is written during the mourning period of passing of Ramatoulaye's husband. Being one of the co-wives, Ramatoulaye's situation in life is different from that of her friend. The two women see their lives, their future in a contrasting fas Muslim Ramatoulaye, a Senegalese abandoned wife adjusts to her new role with utter strength tinged with sorrowfulness.

I had prepared myself for equal sharing, according to the precepts of Islam concerning polygamic life. I was left with empty hands. My children, who disagreed with my decision, sulked.

In opposition to me, they represented a majority What price the lot of African women under what has been patent patriarchal domination for years on end?