Mariama Ba was a Senegalese author and feminist, born in Dakar in 1929 and died in 1981, whose two French-language novels were each translated into more than a dozen languages. She is best known for her debut novel So Long a Letter (1979), a semi-autobiographical epistolary work that follows a Senegalese widow reflecting on tradition, polygamy and the position of women in postcolonial Senegalese society; the novel won the first Noma Award for Publishing in Africa in 1980. Ba is regarded as a pioneering figure of feminist and Islamic-feminist literature in West Africa, giving voice to the specific pressures facing educated African women caught between inherited custom and a changing modern world.
Facts
AwardNoma Award for Publishing in Africa, 1980, the award's first recipient, for So Long a Letter (Une si longue lettre). 1 Classification
Original Language Mariama Bâ
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FAQs
What did Mariama Bâ do before she wrote her first novel?
She taught school for twelve years and then wrote essays on polygamy and clitoridectomy.
Mariama Bâ worked as a secretary after graduating from the École Normale in Rufisque, and in 1947 she became a grade-school teacher. She was forced to resign after twelve years because of ill health. She then joined various Senegalese women's organizations and wrote essays on topics such as polygamy and clitoridectomy, and her first novel So Long a Letter appeared in 1979.
Did Mariama Bâ live to see Scarlet Song published?
No. She died in 1981 before it was published.
No. Bâ wrote Le Chant écarlate, published in English as Scarlet Song, but did not live to see it published. She died in Dakar in 1981 after a long illness.
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Source Wikidata: Mariama Ba
Additional Source Mariama Bâ (Wikipedia)Infobox: genre
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Also in Language Atlas: the original language of this subject.
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Also in Geography Atlas: the nationality of this subject.
Source Mariama Bâ (Wikipedia)tier 2
Sources
1. Mariama Bâ (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)Wikipedia lead sentence, opening parenthetical birth-death dates
Mariama Bâ (April 17, 1929, August 17, 1981) was a Senegalese author and feminist.
Wikipedia lead section, second paragraph, Noma Award sentence
The novel was awarded the first Noma Award for Publishing in Africa in 1980.
In Genre: The Novel, Infobox: genre
novel
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