Tobias Warner, PMLA, October 2024
Since Mariama Bâ’s tragic early death in 1981 the critical consensus has been that she burst unheralded onto the scene with So Long a Letter. But it turns out that Bâ published quite a bit prior to her first novel. In the 1970s, Bâ contributed four more previously unknown pieces to the same periodical that published “Memories of Lagos,” her poetic report from FESTAC ‘77. Her other forgotten writings include a public letter on feminism, an essay on negritude, a tribute to a former headmistress, and the first excerpt of So Long a Letter before it was a book. Most strikingly, all of these writings are intertextual to varying degrees with her first novel. In her newsprint writings of the 1970s, then, one can see Mariama Bâ not only honing her creative practice but also drafting in public sections of what will become So Long a Letter.
This essay introduces readers and teachers of Bâ to the unknown archive of her pre-Letter writings. It begins with an overview of L’Ouest Africain [The West African], the periodical that published these texts. Brief readings of each of Bâ’s essays are followed explorations of how their recovery contributes to the reappraisal of Bâ underway in this issue.After laying out the significance of these writings, this essay concludes with a reflection on the phenomenology of archival “discoveries” and the temporalities of literary history.
Tobias Warner 