Epistolary Friendship
La prise de parole in Mariama B 's Une si longue lettre
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9250182 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ann McElaney-Johnson (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1999 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 110-121 |
| Publication date | 1999-06-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Research in African Literatures (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0034-5210 • E-ISSN: 1527-2044 |
| Publisher | Indiana University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2979/ral.1999.30.2.110 |
| OpenAlex | W2069589341 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 10 |
Mariama Bâ's Une si longue lettre has attracted the attention of literary critics and scholars in both Africa and the Western world. The novel, written in the form of a letter that the protagonist, Ramatoulaye, writes to her childhood friend, examines the challenges and issues that face contemporary Africa at a time of profound change in the political and social arenas following decolonization. Much of the initial discussion of this text has concentrated on such ideological functions of the novel such as sociopolitical implications of polygamy, cultural conflicts in post-colonial Senegal, and the role of the African woman writer (see Cham; d'Almeida; and Stringer). More recently, studies have engaged in a discussion of the formal elements of the work, its narrative structure, and use of discourse (see Larrier; Mortimer; and Stratton). This paper joins this current dialogue through an examination of Bâ's use of the epistolary [End Page 110] genre. Bâ distinguishes herself from her contemporaries in her choice of genre. Although the first-person narrative is common in the African corpus, it is usually represented in the form of autobiography or journal writing. Letter novels are a rarity. One study of the francophone African corpus at the end of the 1970s reveals only five letter novels published before or around the time of Une si longue lettre, all by men. 1 Bâ's surprising choice of genre has provoked much discussion (see Cham; Miller; and Schipper)
Art · Biography · Decolonization · Friendship · Humanities · Ideology · Literature · Narrative · Politics · Sociology · African history and culture studies · Caribbean and African Literature and Culture · History · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies
| Citations per year | 0.18 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2009 - 2017 (9) |
| Highly cited | No |