On Mariama Bâ's novels, stereotypes, and silence

Abstract

The title of this article is borrowed from Trudier Harris’s essay that analyzes the reception of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. Harris argues that Walker had been chosen by the one-track-minded American media, which, “by its very racist nature, seems able to focus on only one black writer at a time.” The publicity had in turn created “a cadre of spectator readers . . . who do not identify with the characters and who do not feel the intensity of their pain, [but] stand back and view the events of the novel as a circus of black human interactions.” Harris suggests that the acclaim Walker’s novel received had discouraged critics from writing critical reviews, even though the characters appeared implausible against the historical background and experience of black Americans. I raise similar concerns about the increasing critical focus on Mariama Bâ’s novels, particularly Une si longue lettre (So Long a Letter).

Bâ’s fi rst of two novels is currently about the most popular African woman-authored novel in the United States and is featured in reading lists of courses that range from French to African and women’s studies. However, there is little or uneasy acknowledgment that Bâ and her characters represent a small and privileged section of African societies or that her women have condescending views of African traditions consistent with colonial ideologies. The few critics who have been categorical about this reality have been criticized for ignoring the colonial masculine privilege. Between them and those who read Bâ’s work as an expression of a feminist consciousness, the intricacies and the human complexities in the narrative are minimized, while the biases and assumptions behind the popularity of the work remain unquestioned. In this article, I argue that the popularity of Bâ’s novel rides on stereotypes of African cultures as inimical to love, individual fulfillment, and monogamy. I trace these images to the imperial framework and locate them in the criticism of her work.