Senegalese teacher and writer, whose epistolary novel Une si longue lettre (1980, So Long a Letter) is considered the classical statement of the female condition in Africa. The book won the first Noma Award for Publishing in Africa at the 1980 Frankfurt Book fair, and made Mariama Bâ at her 50s world famous. Central themes in the novel are male-female relations in patriarchal society, and the tradition of polygamy and its effects on modern African family.

"The power of books, this marvelous invention of astute human intelligence. Various signs associated with sound: different sounds that form the word. Juxtaposition of words from which springs the idea, Thought, History, Science, Life. Sole instrument of interrelationships and of culture, unparalleled means of giving and receiving. Books knit generations together in the same continuing effort that leads to progress. They enabled you to better yourself." (So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ, translated from the French by Modupé Bodé-Thomas, Oxford: Heinemann, 1989, p. 32; first published by Les Nouvelles Editions Africaines 1980)

Mariama Bâ was born into a well-to-do family in Dakar, where she grew up. In the newly independent Senegal, Bâ's father, Amadou Bâ, became in 1956 the first Senegalese Minister of Health. Her grandfather had been an interpreter for French officials in Saint-Louis. After Bâ's mother died, she was raised in the traditional manner by her maternal grandparents. Her early education she received hin French, while at the same time attending Koranic school.

At school Bâ was a prominent student. During the colonial period and later, girls faced a number of obstacles when they wanted to have a higher education. Bâ's grandparents did not plan to educate her beyond primary school, but her father's insistence on giving her an opportunity to continue her studies eventually prevailed. She won the first prize in the entrance examination and entered the Ecole Normale de Rufisque, a teacher training college near Dakar. During this period she published her first book. It was non-fiction and dealt with colonial education in Senegal. At school she also wrote an essay, which created a stir for its rejection of French policies in Africa. However, later in life Bâ recalled her experience with the French colonial educational system in a positive way. She said in her acceptance speech for the Noma award: "People must be instructed, cultured and educated, so that things can advance." (The Senegalese Novel by Women: Through Their Own Eyes by Susan Stringer, New York: Peter Lang, 1996, p. 74)

After graduating in 1947, Bâ earned her living as a teacher, had three husbands and nine children. Her longest marriage was to the journalist and politician Obèye Diop; they eventually divorced. "The meeting of two opposing temperaments, two sets of roiling opinions, two voracious intellectual appetites, two different philosophies, is not easy to manage," Diop recalled. ('Feminize Your Canon: Mariama Bâ' by Emma Garman, The Paris Review, May 13, 2019)

After twelve years of teaching, Bâ was forced to resign due to poor health, and she then worked as a regional school inspector and as a secretary. When her marriage broke up, Bâ raised the children alone. A divorcee and "a modern Muslim woman" as she characterized herself, Bâ was active in women's associations, promoted education, championed women's rights, made speeches, and wrote articles in local newspapers. Mariama Bâ died of cancer in 1981, six months after So Long a Letter won the Noma Award for Literature. She was aware that she was dying but she accepted her fate. Scarlet Song, about the marriage between a European woman and an African man, was published posthumously.

"As a writer, Bâ emerged from the oral tradition of the Senegalese griot women and wrote a "speakerly text." This tradition of orality in Senegal has been the major outlet for women's voices. The griot women—not controlled by society in ways other women are regarding speech—are given a license by society to say whatever they want without censorship. The tradition of the griot women is important to the Senegalese women, because it has always been one way of making themselves heard and listened to." ('Mariama Bâ,' by Siga Fatima Jagne, in Postcolonial African Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook, edited by Pushpa Naidu Parekh and Siga Fatima Jagne, foreword by Carole Boyce Davies, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1998, p. 59)

Although Aminata Sow Fall's work Le Revenant from 1976 was the first novel by a woman to appear in Senegal, So Long a Letter is widely considered one of the first female-authored francophone novels structured around modern feminist themes. Elfred Jones, chairperson of the Noma Award Jury, said that the novel "offers a testimony of the female condition in Africa while at the same time giving that testimony true imaginative depth". (quoted in The Senegalese Novel by Women: Through Their Own Eyes, p. 49)

The book is structured in the form of a letter, or diary, from a widow, Ramatoulaey, to her childhood girlfriend, Aissatou, who lives in the United States. By writing, Ramatoulaey examines her inner confusion. "A nervous breakdown waits around the corner for anyone who lets himself wallow in bitterness." (Ibid., p. 41)

As in the works of the Senegalese woman writer Nafissatou Diallo (1941-1982), who began her career in the 1970s, Bâ's narrator is a strong-willed character, who finds support from women's solidarity. Aissatou's example inspires Ramatoulaye, who must in her own life deal with the consequences of polygamy. Bâ questiones the ideas of idealized femininity of the Négritude movement. Ramatoulaye accepts tradition while struggling for change. 

The story begins with the stressing of the seriousness of the subject, which has prompted Ramatoulaye to write to her friend. Her husband, Modou Fall, has died but she considers it divine will. After 25 years of marriage, her husband had married the friend of his daughter, Binetou. For a moment Ramatoulaye thinks of leaving him but then decides to stay in her marriage, preparing for equal sharing, according to the precepts of Islam concerning polygamic life. Modou avoids her, and spends his money on Binetou. Ramatoulaye fills her days with female duties, she purchases basic foodstuffs, she takes care of the house, pays electricity bills, and she also overcomes her shyness and goes alone to cinemas. Ramatoulaye does not reject the Islamic faith, or polygamy - "My heart concurs with the demands of religion," she says. (Ibid., p. 8) When her daughters want to wear trousers, she first condemns the idea: "I considered the wearing of trousers dreadful in view of our build, which is not that of slim Western women. Trousers accentuate the ample figure of the black woman and further emphasize the curve of the small of the back." (Ibid., pp. 76-77)

Bâ juxtaposes male behavior based on sexual instincts and female continence and rationality. Mawdo Ba, whom Assatou had married and left, defends polygamy and tells of a film in which the survivors of an air crash ate the flesh of the corpses to stay alive. "You can't resist the imperious laws that demand food and clothing for man. The same laws compel the "male" in other respects. I say "male"  to emphasize the bestiality of instincts. . . ." (Ibid., p. 34) Ramatoulaye warns her daughter that the existence of means of contraception should not lead to an unhindered release of desires and instincts. "The existence of means of contraception must not lead to an unhindered release of desires and instincts. It is through his self-control, his ability to reason, to choose, his power to attachment, that the individual distinguishes himself from the animal." (Ibid., p. 87) So Long a Letter has been translated into more than a dozen languages, including Finnish.

Scarlet Song, about the difficulties of interracial marriage, created a stir in feminist circles. Structurally it is antithetical to So Long a Letter. Mireille, the daughter of a French diplomat to Senegal, marries Ousmane Gueye, the son of a poor Senegalese family and a Moslem. Mireille's father opposes the marriage; she accuses him of being a racist. "I'm in love, do you understand! I love a black man, a man black as coal. Black! Black! I love this man and I won't give him up simply because he's black!" (Scarlet Song, translated by Dorothy S. Blair, with a glossary and notes, Harlow, Essex, England: Longman, 1986, p. 29) After completing their studies, the couple settle in Senegal, where Ousmane again adopts the traditions of his family and the community.

Mireille brings with her a conflict into the family. A foreigner, Western educated white woman, she is not welcome in the home of Yaye Khady, Ousmane's mother. In Bâ's novels, it is not only men who oppress women, but mothers can become "victims victimising victims." (Mbye B. Cham, in 'Contemporary society and the female imagination: a study of the novels of Mariama Bâ,' 1987, quoted in African Women Writers and the Politics of Gender by Sadia Zulfiqar Chaudhry, 2013, p. 28)

Ousmane marries a second wife, his childhood sweetheart, and takes money from his and Mireille's joint savings account for his new home. Mireille is humiliated. She loses her mind, kills their mixed-race son and stabs Ousmane several times. "Mireille wandered to and fro on the landing, wild-eyed, the carving-knife still in her hand. Ousmane Gueye lay on the floor. Mireille did not seem to see him as she continued walking aimlessly to and fro. A scarlet song welled up from Ousmane's wounds, the scarlet song of lost hopes." (Ibid., p. 166) Through her fate Bâ shows how traditional features of the Muslim society, such as polygamy and subjugation of women, can destroy families. Bâ puts the blame also on the females of the older generation. 

For further reading: Voces africanas: raza, identidad, género, edited by Barbara Fraticelli (2022); 'Wolof Taasu Genre as Narrative Device in Mariama Ba's So Long a Letter' by Ada Uzoamaka Azodo, in Legacies of Departed African Women Writers: Matrix of Creativity and Power, edited by Helen O. Chukwuma and Chioma Carol Opara (2022); Aspects of Feminism in the Literary Works of Mariama Ba's Novels: "So Long a Letter" and "Scarlet Song" by Elsadig Hamdi Bushra Tahameed, thesis (2020); The Tongue-tied Imagination: Decolonizing Literary Modernity in Senegal by Tobias Warner (2019); Emerging Perspectives on Mariama Ba: Postcolonialism, Feminism, and Postmodernism, edited by Ada Uzoamaka Azodo (2003); Mariama Bâ, Rigoberta Menchú, and Postcolonial Feminism by Laura Charlotte Kempen (2001); 'Mariama Bâ (1929-1981)' by Siga Fatima Jagne, in Postcolonial African Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook, edited by Pushpa Naidu Parekh and Siga Fatima Jagne (1998); 'Mythic Dimensions in the Novels of Mariama Bâ' by Deborah G. Plant, in Research in African Literatures 27.2. (1996); The Senegalese Novel by Women: Through Their Own Eyes by Susan Stringer (1996); Journeys Through the French African Novel by Mildred Mortimer (1990); Theories of Africans: Francophone Literature and Anthropology in Africa by Christopher L. Miller (1990); Voix et visages de femmes, dans les livres écrits par des femmes en Afrique francophone by Madeleine Borgomano (1989); 'Feminism and African Fiction: The Novels of Mariama Bâ' by Charles Ponnuthurai Sarvan, in Modern Fiction Studies 34.3 (1988); 'Contemporary Society and the Female Imagination: a study of the novels of Mariama Bâ' by Cham Mbye in African Literature Today , No. 15 (1987); 'Marriage, Tradition, and Woman's Pursuit of Happiness in the Novels of Mariama Bâ' by Edris Makward, in Ngambika: Studies of Women and African Literature, edited by Carole Boyce Davies and Anne Adams Graves (1986); 'The Concept of Choice in Mariama Bâ's Fiction' by Irene Assiba D'Almeida, in Ngambika: Studies of Women and African Literature, edited by Carole Boyce Davies and Anne Adams Graves (1986); Femmes africaines: Propos recueillis par Antte Mbaye d'Enerville sur les thèmes de femmes et société by Annette Mbaye d'Enerville (1982)

Selected works:

• Une si longue lettre, 1980
  - So Long a Letter (translated by Modupé Bodé-Thomas, 1981)
  - Pitkä kirje (suom. Annikki Suni, 1981)
• 'La fonction politique des littératures africaines écrites', 1981 (in Écriture Française)
• Un chant écarlate, 1981
  - Scarlet Song (translated by Dorothy S. Blair, 1986)