Born in Dakar, Senegal, in 1929, Mariama Bâ was raised as a Muslim by her maternal grandparents. During school holidays Bâ studied the sacred text the Qur’an under the guidance of the Imam of the main mosque in Dakar. Bâ later became a primary schoolteacher and an activist in the feminist movement in Senegal, in which she participated until her death in 1981. A wife and mother, Bâ married a Senegalese politician, with whom she had nine children. Though the marriage ended in divorce it provided inspiration for her first novel, So Long a Letter, noted for its striking depiction of women in Islamic culture and its blistering treatment of polygamy. The novel has been hailed as the most emotionally realistic portrayal of female life in African fiction of the time.
Islam in Senegal. In So Long a Letter the rituals and observances of Islam form a compelling social backdrop against which the widowed Ramatoulaye struggles to come to terms with her bereavement. In the 1970s, the decade in which the novel closes, more than 80 percent of the Senegalese population was Muslim, while 6 percent was Christian and the remainder worshipped deities indigenous to their particular region (Nelson, p.
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