its joys and sorrows - and the status of women in a particular society are major elements defining the novel. B's text is, in fact, a novel employing the epistolary form to convey the thoughts and feelings of a recently widowed woman in Senegal, Ramatoulaye, to her longtime friend, Aissatou, who lives in the United States after experiencing many of the same marital and societal problems as the letter writer. The novel is especially striking in that it depicts the lives of educated upper-class urban people. So Long a Letter is remarkably straightforward regarding lives of Muslim women and the examinations of the causes of various experiences, especially the negative ones. And while the lives of many women have improved to some extent since these novels took place, numerous oppressive laws remain that relegate women to inferior status. Many African women see these works as a watershed and attest that the customs and expectations for women's behavior in many places and among many groups have not altered considerably in everyday life. One critic, Carole Boyce Davies, who co-edited Ngambika, a major work on women in African literatures, sees the efforts of these writers as quite comparable-and comparably bold: "…writers like Miriama B question and overturn some of the entire traditional attitudes to womanhood and women's place" (242). This distinct approach to the topic of motherhood is dramatically displayed in So Long a Letter, the life of the main character, Ramatoulaye, is also dominated by her children; however, for a variety of reasons, the children are not the pivotal element of her story or, seemingly, the overriding concern of Ramatoulaye's life. She was an educated woman with a career of her own, and her family enjoyed at least a minimum of financial security. Her letter to her close friend implies that while her husband remained in the marriage, she must have had to work very hard-with a teaching job and twelve childre...
