Mythic dimensions in the novels of Mariama B

The female characters in the novels of the Senegalese writer Mariama B represent and bring to the foreground not only the economic and sociopolitical contributions but also the moral and spiritual contributions of African women to the development of their countries. In B’s fiction, the African woman is not only complex and multidimensional, she is mythic. Focusing on ‘Une si longue lettre’ (1981) and its protagonist, the present author analyses this mythic dimension in B’s vision of the ideal society, which is characterized by cooperation as opposed to the co-opting of power; in her metaphors of birth, recreation, and fecundity; and in her conception of motherhood. Bibliogr., notes, ref.