A review by octavia_cade
So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ

reflective slow-paced

3.5

This short feminist novel is about an older woman with twelve children, whose husband takes a much younger second wife and essentially abandons his first family. It's short and thoughtful and a little meandering, which is honestly quite appealing given the length, as it contributes to the slow, almost-chatty tone of the book. (It's written as a series of letters from the protagonist to an old friend, who left her husband after he too took another wife.)

The really interesting thing here is the complicated agency of Ramatoulaye. As a Senegalese Muslim woman, she has in one sense very little agency here. Her husband doesn't consult her - he sends his friends to let her know what he's done on the day of his wedding and basically never sees her again - and her freedom, compared to his, is clearly constricted. On the other hand, she has the choice to stay in the marriage (absent as it is) and takes it, which is a choice on her part, and I rather got the impression it was a choice her husband would have preferred she didn't make. It's a complex, nuanced, restrained response to the destruction of family life which is genuinely compelling to read.