In the following review, Ann McElaney-Johnson examines Mariama Ba's Une Si Longue Lettre, a realistic story of a woman who struggles to define her place in the social order, and describes the novel's dual use of displacement.
Until quite recently the woman's place in African francophone literature has been defined by the male writer. Christopher Miller speaks of the traditional image of the "femme noire" in African literature, an image that "shows how francophone literacy constantly 'talks' about women and depends on women for allegorical fuel but excludes women from the process of literate creation." Male writers have traditionally presented female characters who often bear no resemblence to their real-life counterparts. Through their texts these writers have displaced the woman. They have imposed a speech on her that is not her own. They have.....
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