A Very Long Letter

After the death of her husband, Ramatoulaye, a middle-aged and wealthy woman from Dakar, writes a long letter to her best friend, Aïssatou, during the imposed seclusion that Islam demands after a close death.

Ramatoulaye's letter is a sequence of reminiscences, some nostalgic and others bitter, of the most significant moments of her past, but also a reflection on the emotional conflict that arose between her and her husband when he decided to take a second wife, thus undoing twenty-five years of marital life and love.

Through this work, Bâ recounts the plight of Muslim women with education in Senegal in the seventies, but also that of many women today who, outraged by traditions that allow polygyny, inhabit a social environment dominated by attitudes and values that deny them the same rights and status as men. A portrait of the condition of African women in a country emerging from colonial rule and rediscovering its own identity.